Singapore's PHANTOM WORKERS
Their names are on the payroll and payouts are made to their CPF accounts - but they don't work. Errant employers use this scam to get around a quota system for hiring cheaper foreign labour.
Sun, Feb 22, 2009
The Straits Times
By Shuli Sudderuddin
Mrs Josephine Teo, an MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, recently met a retired woman in her 60s at her Meet-the-People session.
'She wasn't working but discovered that money had been deposited in her CPF account,' she said.
The woman was puzzled about this and brought it up to the MP.
Quotas in different sectors
Construction sector
For every full-time Singapore citizen or permanent resident employed by a company which makes regular full-month Central Provident Fund contributions, it can employ seven foreign workers.
Service sector
(Includes financial, insurance, real estate and business services, and restaurants, coffee shops, foodcourts and other approved food establishments.)
Up to 50 per cent of a company's total workforce can be foreign workers on work permits.
No easy task keeping within foreign worker quota
By Shuli Sudderuddin
It strives to maintain the quota but it is no easy task.
The Must Eat coffee shop in Toa Payoh Central has three workers from China and three workers from Malaysia out of its 12 employees there.
This is within the quota for the service industry, where up to 50 per cent of the company's workforce can be foreign workers.
For more The Straits Times stories, click here.