According to an article in The Business Times, Singapore has faced rising Covid-19 cases among migrant workers in dormitories; on 17 October, 601 cases were reported in such dormitories, and there is growing unrest among residents, who have pointed to companies responding slowly to positive Covid cases, a lack of access to medical care, and poor food quality.

To deal with the problems brought about by regular dormitories, some construction companies have chosen to place their migrant workers in “construction temporary quarters” (CTQs), temporary dormitories built on construction sites.

Companies see CTQs as a way to spread out workers so as to minimize the risk of Covid-19 transmission amongst them. Instead of thousands of workers together in close quarters seen in regular dormitories, CTQs hold just a couple of hundred people. In addition to having greater protection against Covid, workers who stay on CTQs can save on transportation costs/time since they stay directly at the construction site.

However, CTQs themselves have downsides. Due to their small size, many lack cooking and laundry facilities. Workers staying on CTQ facilities are often not allowed to work on other projects. Some sites are not large enough to also allow for a CTQ. Finally, CTQs can take many months to build and require regulatory approval, significantly limiting their feasibility in shorter projects.