Local Restaurant Boss Investigated for Hiring Illegal Foreign Workers
Loh Lik Peng, the owner of a series of restaurants here including Meat Smith, is being investigated for hiring illegal foreign workers.
A raid conducted by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), discovered 3 illegal foreign workers who didn’t have work passes, working in his restaurant along Telok Ayer Street.
The hiring of such workers without work passes is a contravention of the Employment of Foreign Manpower act and hence the Boss, Loh is being investigated.
For hiring foreign workers without work permits, employers can be fined up to $30,000 and jailed 1 year.
Loh has pushed blame to managers on the ground citing that the company has policies in place which require all laws to be abided by. He also noted that there are over 300 staff and sometimes, it is simply a matter of human error.
Loh is the owner of a lifestyle group which operates several boutique hotels and restaurants as well as bars. He commented that there is no such thing as a fool proof method to stop human error.
This service line is an industry in Singapore which is highly dependent on foreign workers. Many of the low level jobs pay relatively low and require long hours or shift work and due to a lack of minimum wage in Singapore, wages are often depressed. This also means many locals who face higher costs of living, are not willing to take on such jobs.
The shortfall is made up with foreign workers and in some cases, employers looking to cut costs further even resort to illegal practices such as over declaring salaries, under declaring working hours and in more extreme cases, hiring illegal workers.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this is commonplace in the industry and businesses often complain about a manpower shortage. Even Meat Smith has now posted job ads and said that they are facing a manpower shortage.
These complaints from businesses about a constant shortage of manpower is sometimes interpreted by the government as an indication that Singapore needs to let in more foreign workers. The reality is that there are multiple other ways to improve the shortage including raising wages so that more candidates wish to apply.
While MOM has caught this incident how many more are there which remain undetected?