Speech at Asean Workshop on Eliminating Recruitment Malpractices
Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade , Industry and Manpower
Mrs Maria Alcetis Abrera Mangahas, Senior Migration Specialist, International Labour Organisation,
Distinguished ASEAN delegates,
Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Introduction
Good morning. First and foremost, my warmest welcome to our ASEAN delegates who have taken the time to participate in this workshop. Your contributions to this important topic of eliminating recruitment malpractices will help develop safer and fairer worker management practices in ASEAN. I hope you will have a rewarding and meaningful stay in Singapore.
ASEAN's experience in labour migration
2. ASEAN member states have a long tradition of sending as well as receiving migrant manpower across borders. Some ASEAN countries are primarily labour-sending, some are mainly labour-receiving, and others are both. Undocumented workers make up different proportions of the migrant workforce in different ASEAN countries. While there is significant intra-ASEAN labour migration, in some ASEAN countries, a large proportion of labour migrants go to or come from non-ASEAN countries.
3. With enhanced global transport and communication connectivity, transnational workers are crossing borders in numbers larger than ever before. This has brought opportunities to ASEAN countries in the form of remittances and the availability of human capital. However, labour migration has also presented a number of challenges to ASEAN countries.
4. This workshop therefore comes at an opportune time, for ASEAN countries to take stock of their measures to protect and promote the rights of migrant workers, and share best practices and learning points with each other.
Forms of recruitment malpractices
5. Today, we will focus on tackling recruitment malpractices. To set the context, I will describe three key recruitment malpractices that we frequently encounter, and how they are inter-related.
6. First, migrant workers are often recruited through intermediaries rather than directly by employers. The intermediaries may make false promises about salary, guaranteed duration of contract and job description. Migrant workers then make a decision to go based on these employment terms, which may not materialise. Since the employers are not typically a party to the agreement, workers cannot hold them to the promises.
7. Second, migrant workers may pay very high agency fees, based on these inflated terms. The fees are often paid in the source country to the primary agent, who then pays intermediaries along the recruitment chain. In some cases, the primary agent even pays the employer. Many payments are undocumented because they are in excess of legal limits in the source country or outlawed altogether. Workers will then face difficulties obtaining a refund from their agent if the employment terms promised do not materialise. In some cases, migrant workers arrive at their destination without a job, and even without legal status.
8. The third key malpractice is that, once migrant workers arrive in the receiving country, they may face poor employment conditions. As they are in debt and fear losing their jobs, they do not bargain for better employment conditions. In Singapore, we are well aware of this challenge. We take reports of employment malpractices seriously and will take action against the employers involved. However, even where employers are in breach of labour standards, migrant workers may not report these malpractices as they need the job to pay off their debt.
Causes of recruitment malpractices
9. There are a few factors that perpetuate these malpractices. The first factor is of course the fact that there is a huge supply of low-skilled migrant workers willing to take on limited job opportunities overseas. The second factor is that employment agents are able to arbitrage between supply and demand because of asymmetry of information. As a result, desperate migrant workers sometimes collaborate with their agents or employers to thwart our enforcement efforts.
10. Let me give an example. My Ministry regularly inspects foreign worker housing to ensure standards are acceptable. On one of our inspections, we found that a group of workers staying in a makeshift shed had locked themselves in and turned off all the lights, to avoid our detection. They could have been pressured to do so by their employer. But it is also possible that they feared that their employer would be forced to send them home because he could not afford proper housing.
Singapore's efforts to address recruitment malpractices
11. Singapore has put in place some measures to tackle recruitment malpractices, and my colleague will be giving a presentation on these efforts. I will give you a broad overview.
12. First, we have been stepping up efforts to educate workers on their employment rights as well as their employment terms. As the recruitment chain starts in the source country, we are making efforts to reach out to workers before they arrive on our shores. For instance, we relay key messages to workers via the In-Principle Approval letter that is sent to all workers, and through our overseas test centres for construction workers. We are continuing to study what more we can do on this front.
13. Second, we are well aware that some Singapore employers and intermediaries have not hesitated to cash in on migrant workers' desperation for a job. We have therefore made it illegal for Singapore employers to accept kickbacks for jobs and for agents to facilitate this behaviour. We have been stepping up efforts to prevent, detect and deter such malpractices. Last year, we prosecuted 226 employers and 11 employment agencies for various malpractices.
14. Finally, we are reviewing our employment agencies regulatory framework. We will put in place measures to reduce our employment agencies' involvement in recruitment malpractices. For example, we will increase penalties for various offences under the Act and create new offences. This includes raising the penalties for operating an unlicensed employment agency, and making it an offence for employers to knowingly engage an unlicensed agent. We will also impose new requirements on employment agency staff, to ensure they are appropriately qualified.
Conclusion
15. We acknowledge that despite our best efforts, recruitment malpractices involving migrant workers in Singapore still exist. We therefore look forward to the ideas that will be generated during this workshop on what more ASEAN countries, including Singapore, can do. If we step up cooperation within ASEAN, we can also play a part in eradicating recruitment malpractices within the Southeast Asian labour supply chain.
16. I wish you all a very fruitful workshop. Thank you.