Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has no plans to track the work patterns of platform workers before accidents, saying it would be difficult to capture workers’ total activity when they may operate across multiple platforms.
The ministry said, however, that work intensity and other aspects of a worker’s work pattern would be considered when investigating accidents involving platform workers.
Acting Minister for Manpower Jasmin Lau gave the response in Parliament on August 4 after MP Yeo Wan Ling asked whether MOM tracks, or intends to track, data such as the number of hours injured platform workers had worked or the length of time they had been logged onto a platform before an accident.
The question sought to establish whether work intensity or fatigue could be contributing to safety risks among platform workers.
MOM said it currently has no plans to collect such data. “Doing so would be challenging as platform workers can be working for multiple platforms throughout the day,” the ministry said.
Instead, MOM examines work patterns when investigating accidents that involve platform workers. The ministry said work intensity is assessed alongside other risk factors to determine the potential causes of an incident.
The approach reflects the challenges of monitoring working hours in Singapore’s platform economy, where individuals may work across several digital platforms during the same day.
Unlike traditional employees, whose working hours may be recorded by a single employer, platform workers can move between different operators and determine when and how long they work.
This can make it difficult to establish a complete picture of an individual’s total working time or exposure to work-related risks before an accident occurs.
MOM’s current approach therefore relies on investigations after an incident rather than routinely tracking platform workers’ total working hours or time spent logged into platforms.
The issue also raises questions about how factors such as fatigue and work intensity can be assessed in a workforce where workers have greater flexibility over their schedules but may also combine work across multiple platforms.
MOM said work intensity would remain one of the factors considered when it investigates accidents involving platform workers, alongside other potential causes and risk factors.
The government’s response comes as workplace safety remains a broader area of concern in Singapore, with MOM separately reporting seven fatalities across five workplace incidents over a four-week period from the end of May to June 2026.
However, the ministry said preliminary findings from those incidents did not point to a single underlying cause, as the cases occurred across different industries and circumstances.