Amendments to the Employment Act
December 16, 2013
Source: Ministry of Manpower, Singapore
The Employment Act (EA), enacted in 1968, is Singapore's main labour law that seeks to ensure reasonable employment standards while balancing businesses' need to stay competitive.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has recently made changes to the EA to extend better protection for more workers and improve employment standards, while allowing flexibility for employers where there are practical business concerns. These changes are the outcome of Phase One of the Employment Act Review. Feedback was obtained through several platforms, including an eight-week public consultation exercise from 19 November 2012 to 11 January 2013. The proposals were also carefully evaluated by employers, unions and the Government.
Most of the changes, unless otherwise stated, will take effect on 1 April 2014.
Summary of Key Amendments to the EA
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Better Protection for More Workers |
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Extend Part IV protection of EA to more non-workmen
Extend more protection to Professionals, Managers and Executives (PMEs)
Improve Employment Standards and Benefits
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b. |
Flexibility for Employers |
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c. |
Enhancing Enforcement of and Compliance with Employment Standards |
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Tripartite Guidelines on Payslips and Employment Records
As a first step to encourage more employers to provide payslips to all employees and keep employment records for them, we will be issuing a set of Tripartite Guidelines about these by the first half of 2014. We will closely monitor the adoption of the guidelines, before phasing in the requirements over time.
We will also provide the necessary tools to help employers implement these requirements. These include simple payslip booklets and downloadable payslip / employment record templates. These tools will be available on MOM's website by 1 April 2014.
Marriage & Parenthood Related Amendments
Some technical amendments will be made to clarify the application of some of the existing Marriage and Parenthood measures:
a. |
The Child Development Co-Savings Act (CDCA) will be updated such that it accurately reflects the policy that parents’ total child care and extended child care leave is based on their youngest qualifying Singapore Citizen (SC) child under the CDCA. This is to avoid situations where parents who have both an older SC child and a younger non-citizen child double-claim leave under both the EA and the CDCA. |
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b. |
The EA and the CDCA will prescribe new formulae to compute the minimum number of days of maternity, paternity, shared parental or adoption leave an employee is entitled to, if there is mutual agreement between the employer and employee for the leave to be taken flexibly by days instead of by block week. This will provide greater certainty for both employers and employees. |