Domestic Worker Salaries in Singapore

Foreign domestic workers (a.k.a. maids) have a work permit (WO, not S-Pass) and earn between S$250 and 600 a month, depending on employer, experience and language skills - plus health insurance, home trips (every two years), accomodation and food (they must live in the employer's household).

$250 a month, surely not. Why would they leave their country for that? A Filipino who works in a mall in the Philippines would get almost twice that.

I'm very surprised that's all they would get. 500-600$ I can understand

In the villages, where most of these girls come from, there are no mall jobs (or any other, for that matter).
And in addition, at home they'd have to pay for accommodation and food from it, too - which is provided for in Singapore.
The overall cost for the employer of a maid in Singapore is S$1200-2000/month (this includes the maid levy paid to the government, a kind of luxury tax)

I just googled and found that maid salaries are now mor likely S$300-800/month (with first-timers usually below 400) - my information was a few years old, sorry!

Thanks for your response. Im sure many of them are also being ripped off by the agencies they use which is unfortunate.

You are absolutely right: Basically all first-timers need to pay at least 6 months pay to the agency (without which they'd have no chance of ever finding such a job). In some countries (most notably Philippines) the authorities also take a huge cut in the form of permits, fees or even bribes.
If they are dismissed within their first year (which the employer has the right to do for any reason) of a two-year contract, they are usually poorer than before.

Edited to add: The discussion of maid salaries is interesting, but off-topic here. I will thus request the moderators to separate the topics.

Hello,

I am a domestic helper myself been here for almost 9 years and my pay was started at $350. Now, I am getting $750 per month.

Hiring a domestic helper now will cost you at least 500 to 1000 (fresh from Philippines or Indonesia) that, includes the levy and some other paper works and insurance.

THis article has some good data:
tidypal.com/Blog/rising-costs-of-domestic-helpers

Hi,

The latest rates of domestic workings in Singapore is as follows

New Maids - Starting from 400 upto 500 depending on the origin of the domestic helper

Experienced Maids - Starting from 450 upto 750 again depending on the origin of the domestic helper.

Apart from that you need to pay a levy of approx 270 dollars every month

I have had pretty bad experiences both from new maids as well as experienced ones.

Some maid agencies are there to rip you out...so better be cautious. Of course the authorities have stepped up their vigilance and introduced new measures to curb this

Consider all these factors.