Leaving to save ourselves
We conducted an online survey of non-domestic workers from Myanmar in July and August 2025 to understand their recruitment experiences.
We conducted an online survey of non-domestic workers from Myanmar in July and August 2025 to understand their recruitment experiences.
A group of construction workers with no experience, no training and no skills were hired on S-Passes with salaries over $3,000 a month. This was no accident. When they were not paid, there was no safety net for them.
A large number of employers in MOM's 2024 survey reported using recruitment channels strongly associated with excessive fees and kickbacks. Time to stop denying how dirty our recruitment landscape is.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
TADM's annual report has useful numbers (but not enough of them), but it's frustrating to see them use language that obscures reality
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.