Singapore to offer reemployment to workers whose employers have cancelled their work permits

Starting 1 Sept 2021, Singapore will find jobs for any worker in the construction, marine or process industries whose work permit was prematurely terminated by his employer. The SIngapore Contractors Association (which also holds an employment agency licence) has been tasked with the responsibility to find new jobs for these workers within 30 days, though if no match is found, the worker will still be repatriated. This is an improvement over the present system where premature termination makes repatriation mandatory. For workers whose work permits are reaching expiry but whose employers do not wish to renew them,they already have a 20-day period to look for change of employer. Unfortunately, we are very short on details, because the announcement consisted literally of just one sentence! We are still trying to find out more, and are particularly concerned about the conflict between the two schemes. We're also trying to find out how much the Contractors Association will charge for the job matching, but informally, we heard that it would be around US$50. TWC2 has been making a big issue of recruitment costs for the last few years, and my sense s that the government is beginning to be sensitive to it; this may explain why employment agents have been cut out from the job-matching scheme, and the role given exclusively to the Contractors Association which is susceptible to pressure from the government if they charge more than minimally. What we have heard from the media is that there is also some arrangement for the Contractors Association to provide housing for those 30 days -- and in the event no match is found, to buy the airticket. TWC2 is not being ecstatic (yet) about this worker retention scheme although on the surface it does look like what we've been pushing for for a long time. Why not? Because the government's justification is not based on ethics but based on the utilitarian case that Singapore is currently desperately short of migrant workers and, with borders closed, we can't get replacements from abroad. Once borders re-open, the scheme may end and workers lose the option of re-employment. --

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