Seven employers charged over ‘phantom worker’ CPF declarations used to get work passes

In a written parliamentary reply, MOM said TAFEP received 59 workplace harassment complaints in 2025, and that fewer than 5% of employers asked to carry out an independent investigation did not do so; those employers were issued advisories. Under the Workplace Fairness Act, due to take effect by end-2027, employers will have to set up grievance-handling processes and investigate harassment and discrimination grievances.

The Skills and Workforce Development Agency has launched three new initiatives for Singapore’s workforce: Connect by SWDA, a one-stop careers and skills touchpoint at the Lifelong Learning Institute; a SkillsFuture AI Subscription giving access to over 200 AI courses; and OurWorkforce, a new one-stop portal for employers to access training and workforce transformation resources. PM Lawrence Wong launched the initiatives at the opening of SkillsFuture Festival 2026, which runs from 16 September to 28 October.

MOM said that in 2025, the first full year after the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests took effect in December 2024, around seven in 10 firms offered scheduled flexible work arrangements. It pointed employers to two grants that can help fund such arrangements: the SkillsFuture Workforce Development Grant (Job Redesign+) and the EDGE Grant.

Employment kept climbing in the second quarter, up 11,400 — the ministry’s nineteenth straight quarter of growth. But retrenchments rose too, to 4,620 from 3,830 in Q1, and job vacancies slipped to 68,600. Only 54.9% of retrenched residents found new work within six months, MOM’s latest labour market report shows.

Singapore’s major workplace injury rate fell to an all-time low of 14.6 per 100,000 workers in the first half of 2026, down from 15.8 a year earlier, according to MOM’s 1H2026 Workplace Safety and Health report. Fatal injuries moved the other way. The fatal injury rate rose to 1.1 per 100,000 workers (21 deaths), up…