Plans to Study Effectiveness of Pilot Household Services Scheme

5 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry will be studying the effectiveness of the pilot Household Services Scheme that allows foreign workers to provide domestic services to households; (b) if so, what factors will be used to determine the effectiveness of the Scheme; and (c) how long does the Ministry intend to run the pilot before deciding to formalise the Scheme.

Mrs Josephine Teo: The Household Services Scheme (HSS) was piloted in 2017 to allow eligible companies to hire more foreign workers to provide part-time domestic services, such as home cleaning. Since then, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has been monitoring the demand for part-time domestic services and studying the effectiveness of the HSS in meeting households' needs for part-time domestic services.

As demand for part-time domestic services picked up, MOM expanded the number of HSS companies from 15 in 2017 to 50 in 2019. We are still monitoring the Scheme to assess how it is meeting the needs of households and providers of domestic services, and the risks of HSS workers being diverted by companies to non-domestic work. The pilot has been extended to run until August 2020, and MOM will evaluate the results of the pilot thereafter.