IN the World Economic Forum's annual assessment of country competitiveness, Singapore consistently ranks among those with the best employment practices, placing high in the top 10 on just about every measure of labour market efficiency. Interestingly though, the same survey in the 2013 Global Competitiveness Report also had Singapore executives citing "restrictive labour regulations" as by far "the most problematic factor for doing business", well above "inflation" or "insufficient capacity to innovate". One should assume that the statutory requirement to pay Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions - and, indeed, wages - for every employee isn't among the onerous labour regulations that employers take issue with.

But Singapore has this week passed two pieces of legislation to mete out stiffer penalties to employers who fail to pay CPF contributions - and salaries. In May, the CPF Board said that it recovered $293 million in CPF arrears owed to more than 200,000 workers in 2012. Most of the cases involved late payment, but still, 11,000 workers were either shortchanged or failed to receive their CPF dues from some 4,000 companies, to the tune of $9.4 million. Shocking as the $293 million arrears is, the figure covers only the sums that were recovered; a good number of errant employers may well have slipped through the cracks, especially in the past before the CPF Board stepped up its enforcement audits and on-site inspections to deter recalcitrant employers late last year.

Workers need their CPF and not only for retirement-- the CPF has long evolved from being merely a retirement savings scheme to meeting Singaporeans' home ownership and healthcare financing needs. CPF defaulters, especially repeat offenders, must be taken to task - just like employers who fail to pay salaries. With the amendments to the CPF Act passed in Parliament on Tuesday, first-time offenders can be jailed up to six months or fined up to $5,000 (double the previous maximum fine) or both. Similarly, the Employment Act has been amended to hand out a mandatory minimum fine and much higher maximum fines (up to $30,000 for repeat offenders) for those that withhold salaries.