Source: Reuters

Starting from 1 November, firms with at least 10 employees must inform the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) each time they retrench any staff.

According to new requirements released on Tuesday (7 September), employers have to file the mandatory retrenchment notification within five days after they give the notice of retrenchment to the affected employee.

“The revised notification enables the tripartite partners, Workforce Singapore, the Employment and Employability Institute, as well as other agencies to better reach out to affected local employees to provide employment and job search support,” said MOM.

The support includes workshops, career coaching, networking and job fairs, and job matching referrals.

Currently, the rules require employers to only notify MOM when they retrench five or more employees within a six-month period.

Senior Minister of State for Manpower, Dr Koh Poh Koon, said: “One particular group of job seekers that we are especially concerned about are people who have been retrenched, because this is not just a matter of having a financial burden imposed on them, but they go through a lot of stress.”

He added, “So part of the way to help them better, is not just to get better data, but to go upstream to be notified earlier of when they may be at risk of retrenchment, so that we can execute the measures that can help them to either look for a new job, to provide career guidance and coaching as well.”

He went on to note, “So by streamlining this and mandating the notification from the first employee to be retrenched… hopefully we can intervene earlier to help each and every single employee who may be facing retrenchment.”

“It also has an advantage for the employers, because now they have less burden in terms of tracking who is the fifth employee over the six-month period, when they have to start providing the mandatory notification.”

Dr Koh said this while he was visiting Workforce Singapore’s Careers Connect office at Our Tampines Hub in order to look at the job facilitation efforts there.

On Monday, MOM released figures that showed that Singapore’s unemployment rates in July for resident and citizen rose by 0.2 percent respectively for the first time in 10 months following tightened COVID-19 restrictions under Phase 2 (Heightened Alert).

The data revealed that resident unemployment rate increased from 3.5 to 3.7 percent, while unemployment among Singapore citizen rose from 3.7 to 3.9 percent.

The overall unemployment rate in July was 2.8 percent, which is an increase from 2.7 percent in June.

Advance estimates by MOM also showed that retrenchments increased slightly to 2,500 in the April to June period, from 2,270 in the previous quarter.

MOM explained that employers can notify the Ministry of retrenchments via its website by submitting information including the size of the workforce before retrenchment and the details of the affected worker, such as job title. The entire process that approximately 10 minutes to complete.

For employers who fail to comply with this regulation, they can be imposed with penalties of up to S$2000.

MOM added, “Employers should also ensure that they manage any retrenchment exercises responsibly and fairly.”

Reactions from netizens

Upon reading about this new requirement, online users questioned MOM if this includes workers who have been forced by their employers to tender their resignation. Penning their thoughts in the Facebook page of The Straits Times, they said that companies will make the working experience for workers difficult until they choose to voluntarily resign, adding that this practice is common in the industry as employers don’t want to pay retrenchment fee

Others said that employers don’t have a choice but to retrench staff as they are not making profit to survive amid the pandemic. As such, they asked what MOM can do to support employers.

One user pointed out that it is harder to retrench contract workers than it is to retrench permanent workers.

“The labour law is lopsided and full of loopholes for employers to play around to force out employees rather than retrenchment,” the user said.


An example would be how workers who were dismissed by Surbana Jurong for “poor performance” were initially given two letters to choose from after meeting their Human Resource department on Friday, 6 January. They had to make a Hobson’s choice between a letter of termination and a letter of resignation.

Those who were still of employable age were compelled to take up the option of resignation letter as a termination will leave a bad mark on their employment history. However, those who were over the age of 62 did not accept their dismissal and took the issue to union officials and the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).

In response to public criticism, Surbana Jurong argued that dismissal of 54 staff without warning nor performance reviews, is not retrenchment exercise.

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