Ministry of Manpower states foreign workers suffer layoffs

Nenad Bukva August 10, 2020

Ministry of Manpower says majority of retrenched Resorts World Sentosa employees were foreign nationals

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in Singapore said in a statement on Thursday that the majority of the retrenched employees by Resorts World Sentosa were foreign nationals. With this, local workers increased to 75% from 66% before the layoff.

Ministry of Manpower noted that locals were given priority to retain their jobs in cases where the foreign and local employees have the same performance rating.

‘In fact, for each category of workers, the foreign employee had to have a higher performance rating compared to the local employee, in order not to be retrenched,’ Ministry of Manpower said.

Consideration was also given to locals who volunteered to report to work at the Covid-19 community care facility which the company set up last April.

RWS has more that 7,000 full time employees as of last year, making them one of the biggest private sector employers in the state. Last month, RWS announced that they will lay off several employees from the company as a cost cutting measure in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Citing a report from Channel News Asia, based on a “detailed information” provided by RWS to Ministry of Manpower and the Attractions, Resorts and Entertainment Union (AREU), the ministry stated that the layoff was done after the company has eliminated unnecessary spending and cut back management salaries by up to 30 percent. Further, MOM said the company has paid out the eligible workers half of month’s salary per year of service, which was within the guidelines for companies affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

In 01 July, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) allowed resumption of operations in stages for businesses falling under the tourism industry on its phase 2 “circuit breaker”. Casinos were also given permission to resume operations upon approval of their safe reopening proposal. However, entry to the casinos is limited to rewards members and annual levy holders.