More foreign workers would recommend Singapore as a good place for work: MOM survey

More than eight out of every 10 foreign workers would recommend Singapore to their friends and relatives as a place for work, interim findings from a Ministry of Manpower survey show.
 
This is an increase from seven in 10 when the ministry first conducted its Foreign Worker Study three years ago based on interviews with work permit and S-pass holders.
 
The interim findings were released alongside Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin’s speech in Parliament on Monday, when he also acknowledged the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry that looked into the factors behind the Little India riot that took place last December and involved 400 foreign workers.
 
Asked why they would recommend Singapore as a good place to work, 67 per cent of the foreign workers polled said they would cite good pay as a reason, while 45 and 35 per cent said they would name good working and living conditions, respectively.
 
Conversely, for those who said they would not recommend Singapore as a good place to work, they cited expensive employment agency fees (47 per cent), low pay (21 per cent) and poor working conditions (8 per cent) as their top three reasons.
 
However, the percentage of foreign workers who were satisfied or very satisfied with working in Singapore dipped slightly from 90.6 per cent to 90.2 per cent, although the percentage of dissatisfied or very dissatisfied foreign worker respondents fell from 5.2 per cent to 2.3 per cent. The number of respondents who said they were neutral to working here increased from 4.2 per cent to 7.6 per cent.
 
Also, when asked whom they would approach first for employment-related problems, 63 per cent said they would go to their supervisors first, while 22 per cent said they would go straight to the Ministry of Manpower. A further 11 per cent said they would take the issues they faced up with their employers.
 
This differs from the findings collected in 2011, which revealed that 27 per cent of workers would go to their employers, as opposed to 8 per cent, who said they would go to their ministries first.
 
For work-injury compensation claims, 68 per cent of the foreign workers polled said they would go to their supervisors first, 22 per cent said they would go to their employers, while 7 per cent cited the MOM as their go-to party.
 
Singapore is temporary home to 1.15 million work permit and S-pass holders, making up about a fifth of Singapore's population. Most of the work permit holders work in the construction industry and many come from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.