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Singapore Employment Law Update

July 8th, 2018

The employment landscape in Singapore has been experiencing significant changes in recent years. Singapore has been constantly evolving and adapting to keep up with fast changing global economics and their own changing local workforce. Below are some updates to Singapore employment law for 2018 and looking ahead to 2019.

In an effort to ensure that Singaporeans have access to good jobs and making it more difficult for smaller companies to hire foreign talent in Singapore, effective July 1, 2018, is the Extension of applicability of Fair Consideration Framework. Currently the Fair Consideration Framework says companies with 25 or more full-time employees seeking to hire foreign employees on Employment Passes for positions where fixed monthly salary is below SGD 12,000, must first advertise the positions on the National Jobs Bank Portal for at least 14 days. From July 1, 2018, the Fair Consideration Framework will apply to employers with at least 10 workers and for jobs paying below SGD 15,000 a month.

With the goal of enhancing the overall quality of Singapore’s foreign manpower, effective January 1, 2019, there will be an increase in minimum qualifying monthly salary for S pass holders. The minimum qualifying salary for S Pass will be increased to SGD 2,400 from SGD 2,200. This will be done in two phases: effective January 1, 2019 it will increase to SGD 2,300 and on January 1, 2020 it will increase to SGD 2,400.

Finally, there will be changes to the Employment Act of Singapore. The Ministry of Manpower (“MOM”) announced on March 5, 2018 that amendments to the EA will be implemented effective April 1, 2019. A key amendment to the EA involves enhancing the current EA framework by extending the coverage of the EA to professionals, managers and executives (“PMEs”) earning more than SGD $4,500 per month. Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say stated that "as professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) make up 56% of the workforce – going up to 65% by around 2030 – it is timely to make a fundamental change to the coverage of the Employment Act". In other words, managers and executives who were previously not protected by the Act would now benefit from the minimum standards stipulated by the Act in relation to certain conditions of their employment such as paid public holidays, sick leave, hospitalization leave and maternity leave and more. Also, the Employment Act of Singapore will be expanded to include “non-workman” employees who are not involved in manual labor such as clerks, receptionists and retail sales assistants earning up to SGD $2,600 per month, which is up from the current cap of SGD $2,500 per month. This will result in a larger number of non-workmen being entitled to the protection afforded by the EA which includes day offs, overtime pay and working hours. There will also be an increase of salary cap for non-workmen for overtime pay from SGD 2,250 to SGD 2,600. It is contemplated that benefits such as annual leave will be extended to all employees. Lastly, Ministry of Manpower of Singapore currently handles wrongful dismissal claims. However, dismissal related claims are typically also salary-related, so another change will be that the Employment Claims Tribunals of Singapore will begin hearing claims related to wrongful dismissal, which should streamline the dispute resolution process.

Tiger Consulting Asia has offices in six ASEAN countries and we are committed to making expansion and management of Asian and UAE operations easier for international businesses. Tiger Consulting's HR, Payroll, employment and business support services are managed by experienced teams on the ground in 16 locations: Australia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, UAE and USA. The company currently serves 300+ businesses spanning industries including IT, telecom, social networking, fashion, finance, pharmaceuticals, travel, recruitment, Gas & Oil and hospitality.

Sincerely,
Mercy Mildener
Public Relations and Marketing Consultant

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