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Written Answer by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Manpower, to Parliamentary Question on number of Malaysians working in Singapore and sectors they work in

NOTICE PAPER NO. 1919 OF 2019 FOR THE SITTING ON 6 JANUARY 2020

QUESTION NO. 3323 FOR ORAL ANSWER

MP: Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar

To ask the Minister for Manpower (a) how many Malaysian workers are working in Singapore on work permits annually over the past five years; (b) which are the three main sectors that they are working in; and (c) what proportion of these Malaysian workers do not live in Singapore but instead commute between Singapore and Malaysia on a daily basis.

Answer

  1. MOM publishes annual statistics on local and foreign workforce numbers. However, MOM does not provide a breakdown of the number of foreign workers by nationality as it is not in Singapore’s interest to do so.

       

  2. Malaysian workers can be found across all sectors. This is not surprising, since our work pass framework allows Malaysian workers in all sectors, subject to the respective sector’s Dependency Ratio Ceiling (DRC) controls.