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Our comments on MOM’s migrant worker survey 2024, part 1 (skills and training)
Difficult to get workers with the needed skills, employers say. Look more closely, and we also see a huge reluctance to sponsor workers for training, or even to give them time off to do so.
Interesting ingredients in hotpot employee’s salary case
A restaurant worker worked 12 - 13 hours a day, and every day except for 2 rest days a month. He was not paid overtime pay. TADM said he had no case. We help him build one.
Foreign workforce numbers 2024
We archive what little public data there is from the Ministry of Manpower regarding the numbers of migrant labour in Singapore for the six years up to 2024
Seven joyless workers, part 2
Seven workers recruited by the extended family of a husband-and-wife couple based in Singapore paid $9,000 each to get jobs jere. Big salaries promised, then stopped altogether.
Seven joyless workers, part 1
There's a loophole in the law by which a migrant worker with absolutely no training in basic construction skills can become a construction worker. It's a backdoor via the S-Pass.
Woolly “fully” – TADM’s 2024 report
TADM's annual report has useful numbers (but not enough of them), but it's frustrating to see them use language that obscures reality
“Anything talking also send back”
An employer fails to pay salaries in full or on time, ignores the rule that salaries muct be paid through bank, or that payslips must be issued. When challenged by TADM, the boss presents falsified documents.
A hard trek to a hard-hearted place
A family in Burma fears the army will be knocking on their doors soon. Where can they send their sons to be safe? What does it take to get there?
Best payslip there is
Every month, without fail, an employer issues his employees a payslip with am exemplary format. All details are clear. But there's one thing missing.
Learning the lines for showtime
A Bangladeshi welder paid $3,400 to get a shipyard job. No receipts given, he says. Then he had to memorise some lines to say in front of the camera, and to express deep gratitude.