AN INSIGHT TO FOREIGN WORKERS' PRODUCTIVITY AND WORK QUALITY IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Construction industry is one of the sectors that need the employment of foreign workers to carry out various jobs in fulfilling the work site. However, in contradictory, many problems in relation to the employment of the many foreign workers surfaced for many years, in particular, their level of skills and productivity. The aim of this dissertation is to study the current foreign workers’ productivity level, and discuss how they are progressing with the various upgrading of skills solutions implemented by the government and efforts taken by construction companies themselves. A case study of the foreign construction workers in Malaysia is used to illustrate the similar situation its construction industry is facing, it being reliant on foreign workers to do general construction work and how they deal with training the workers to achieve maximum productivity. Relevant lessons are then drawn from the case study and then applied to give recommendations for Singapore’s context. A total of 50 sets of questionnaires have been distributed to various contractors in construction companies in Singapore to get their feedback on productivity issues of the foreign workers employed by them. The findings show that many construction players think that productivity level in the industry is low, and trainings programmes available for the purpose of skills upgrading are still inadequate to fully equip the foreign workers. As such, more should be done to improve the current situation here. As a recommendation, it was suggested that training programmes for the foreign workers are improved so that they will achieve more than just basic skills.