Singapore to raise retirement, re-employment ages

SINGAPORE: Singapore will go ahead with the plans to raise the statutory retirement age to 63 and the re-employment age to 68 on July 1 next year, the Straits Times reported.

Manpower Minister Josephine Teo was quoted as saying yesterday that the public service will also fulfil its earlier commitment to raise the ages a year ahead of legislation for its roughly 146,000 officers on July 1 this year.

“This will help to keep us on track to raise the retirement age to 65 and re-employment age to 70 by the end of this decade,” Teo said during the debate of her ministry’s budget.

Meanwhile, the raising of Central Provident Fund (CPF) contribution rates for senior workers will also go ahead on Jan 1, 2022, “barring any unforeseen circumstances”.

The increase, which was to have taken place on Jan 1 this year, would have seen employers and workers contribute either 0.5 percentage point or one percentage point more for workers aged 55 to 70, based on the person’s age. It was deferred by a year to help employers manage costs amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Teo was laying out the Ministry of Manpower’s three priorities for 2021, which involve securing the jobs rebound in the short term by shoring up the hiring of locals through the extension of the Jobs Growth Incentive, a wage subsidy scheme, and supporting business transformation.

The third priority is helping every segment of the workforce - including senior workers - emerge stronger from the pandemic.

Going ahead with the age rises as planned will provide older workers with the choice to work longer and help them build up more savings for their retirement, said Teo.

The move to lift the statutory retirement and reemployment ages were first announced in 2019.