HOME’s Statement on Unpaid Wages and Support for Affected Migrant Workers
Since 22 June 2026, more than 400 migrant workers from VVR Plant Engineering, SK Industries and KPA Engineering have reportedly come forward over salaries owed to them for several months.
This case is not isolated. It exposes long-standing issues of wage theft and gaps in Singapore’s wage recovery system, especially for low-wage migrant workers whose employment and immigration status are tied to their employers.
Wage Recovery Remains Difficult, Even When Workers Come Forward
Based on HOME’s casework experience, migrant workers often delay reporting salary issues because the risks are overwhelming. With limited labour mobility, workers may fear losing their jobs, being repatriated and/or blacklisted and being unable to repay recruitment debts. Some are repeatedly assured by employers that payment will be made soon. Others may not fully understand the claims process, or may lack the language support and documentation needed to file claims confidently.
Wage recovery challenges are very common. Even when workers succeed in obtaining an order through the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) or the Employment Claims Tribunals (ECT), enforcement can remain difficult. If an employer has shut down, become uncontactable, moved assets, refused to comply, or has no funds left, a favourable order may remain a paper judgment. Currently, workers may seek limited redress through discretionary funds, but these funds often fall short of covering the full amounts they are owed.
For workers whose employers have gone bankrupt or are undergoing liquidation, wage recovery becomes even more out of reach. Workers may have to wait through lengthy liquidation proceedings before receiving their owed wages, if they receive them at all. For low-wage migrant workers, this delay can be devastating. These are workers with families to support, debts to repay, and immediate needs for food, housing and remittances.
A worker may be legally owed wages, and may even prove this through the formal claims process, but still struggle to recover the money. This is the central gap in the current system. Workers should not be made to bear the cost of business failure. Employers and company directors must be held accountable for outstanding wages, and workers must not be left stranded when companies shut down.
Singapore Needs a Statutory Wage Protection Fund or Wage Protection Insurance
Beyond immediate assistance, Singapore needs structural reform to ensure workers can actually recover wages when employers fail. To this end, HOME calls for the introduction of a statutory wage protection fund or mandatory wage protection insurance.
A statutory wage protection fund is a simple idea: when a company shuts down, becomes insolvent, or abandons its workers without paying them, workers should be able to receive their unpaid wages from a dedicated government-administered fund first. The fund can then recover the money later from the employer, directors, related companies, or through the liquidation process.
In other words, workers should not have to wait years for a company’s assets to be sorted out before receiving wages they have already earned.
Singapore is well placed to establish such a fund. More than S$7 billion is collected each year through foreign worker levies. A portion of these funds should be channelled into concrete wage protections for the very workers whose labour sustains key sectors of Singapore’s economy.
Another option is mandatory wage protection insurance. This would require employers to purchase insurance that covers unpaid wages if the company becomes insolvent, shuts down, or abandons workers. Just as employers are required to bear responsibility for other employment-related risks, they should also be required to insure against the risk that workers are left unpaid.
However, employers must not be allowed to pass the cost of such schemes on to workers through wage suppression, unlawful deductions, or higher recruitment-related costs. To guard against this, Singapore should also consider broader wage protections, including living wage policies, stronger enforcement against illegal deductions, and closer monitoring of recruitment and placement costs.
These mechanisms should apply to all workers, regardless of nationality. Wage recovery should not depend on whether a worker is local or migrant, or whether the worker qualifies for discretionary assistance. If the work has been done, wages must be paid.
Workers Need Better Job Mobility and Employer Matching
Crucially, greater job mobility must be part of the solution. When an employer fails to pay wages, workers should have the right to change employers.
The current work pass framework gives employers significant control over a worker’s livelihood and immigration status. This imbalance can make workers afraid to report abuse, even when their salaries have not been paid. Workers may rely on employers’ assurances that payment is forthcoming, choosing to wait rather than confront the uncertainty of resigning, pursuing formal remedies, or being repatriated before securing another job.
Workers must be allowed to seek transfers by giving clear notice, without having to obtain consent from employers. Employers in breach of their obligations (for e.g. by not paying salaries on time) should not be allowed to object to transfers. This would reduce workers’ vulnerability, empower them to seek redress earlier, and create stronger incentives for employers to comply with the law.
The current system permits workers to change employers without employer consent if they can demonstrate a valid salary claim. In practice, however, significant barriers remain. Workers are typically given only a short window, often between two and four weeks, to secure alternative employment. If they are unable to do so, they face repatriation. Many are also required to pay additional agency fees, compounding the substantial recruitment debts they have already incurred to obtain employment in Singapore.
To provide workers with a genuine opportunity to remain employed, Singapore should establish a streamlined job-matching mechanism that connects willing employers directly with workers involved in salary disputes. This would reduce unnecessary agency fees and prevent workers from being pushed into further debt just to continue working.
Such solutions are not aspirational. In the current case, unions and the Ministry of Manpower were able to coordinate with willing employers to secure more than 150 job opportunities for over 400 affected workers. Rather than relying on ad hoc interventions in highly visible cases, such practices should be institutionalised and embedded within the system. Workers facing employment disputes should have a meaningful, accessible and debt-free pathway to continued employment.
We call for urgent reforms to prevent similar cases from recurring. Workers should not be left with empty promises after months of labour. Non-payment of salaries is wage theft, and must be treated as such.
Published 30 June 2026