Long-term Strategy to Ensure Sufficient and Resilient Housing for Foreign Workers

Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Manpower in light of the high occupancy rates and recent closures of purpose-built dormitories, what is the Ministry's long-term strategy to ensure sufficient and resilient housing for foreign workers.

Sir, the Government has been working closely with the dormitory industry to increase dormitory bed supply. This includes extending the leases of expiring dormitories where feasible, as well as enabling existing purpose-built dormitories (PBDs) with excess space to increase their occupancy load, while meeting prevailing dormitory housing standards. We have also been streamlining and facilitating applications for new Factory-Converted Dormitories and temporary workers' quarters, such as Temporary Occupation Licence Quarters to provide more sources of bed supply.

Over the next few years, six new PBDs with around 45,000 beds will also be added to the market, including the Ministry of Manpower's 2,400-bed PBD in Jalan Tukang, set to be operational in early 2026.

While the Government has put in place measures to expand dormitory bed supply, this will not be sustainable if demand for work permit holders grows unabatedly. So, we urge employers to adopt productivity measures to reduce their reliance on migrant workers.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. With the push towards better living standards in our dormitories, including stricter regulatory requirements, how does the Ministry strike a balance between safeguarding workers' welfare and avoiding excessive compliance costs for businesses? What efforts are in place to ensure that the regulatory upgrades are implemented in a cost effective and phased manner?

Sir, I thank the Member for his supplementary questions. Briefly, the dormitory transition plan is a phased approach. We take into account the peak numbers of workers at any point in time as well as the existing available number of bed spaces, so that we stage the transition of existing dormitories to new standards in a phased manner, to make sure that as we take the transition of existing dormitories, we do not end up causing a supply shortage.

At the same time, we are also injecting new supply, as I said in my main reply. Together, this will ensure adequate supply, even as we require dormitories to transition to newer standards. And so, it is a progressive approach. We keep in close contact with the Dormitory Association of Singapore Limited, so that we hear the industry's voice constantly. They are also helping us connect employers who may need bed spaces for their workers to those dormitories that have excess spaces, so there is a matching effort that takes place at the industry level. With that, I think we can transit to the desired dormitory standards over time, without impacting too much of dormitory supply.

Over time, as the supply and demand balance is achieved, we will see dormitory prices stabilising. In fact, that has been the case over the past year.