Leong Sze Hian -
“The latest Ministry of Manpower survey on some 3,600 private sector establishments earlier this year found that only 2.8 per cent of the establishments with employees aged 60 and above” practise wage cuts for employees who reach the age of 60. (MOM)
The results of such a survey first and foremost would be dubious, for the following reasons:
How likely is it for an employer to say yes to a question asking whether they cut the wages of workers when they reach 60 years old, especially when such a question is asked by MOM?
Employers who have cut older workers’ wages even before they reach 60, may also simply answer no to the question.
Employers can also let older workers go even before they reach 60, as the employer is almost at liberty to do so using various reasons, so long as age was not given as the actual reason.
That aside, lets look at three simple yet contradicting set of numbers from three different parties with regards to the number of older workers whose wages are cut when they reach 60-years old.
As mentioned above, the MOM survey says “only 2.8 per cent” of private sector companies do so.
The NTUC’s estimate, however, puts the figure at about 80 per cent of unionised companies. (Asia One)
The Public Service Division says “a good majority do not get such a cut” – which could mean that as many as 49 per cent of these workers do see reductions in pay when they turn 60.
So, I am really quite confused, as the MOM says less than 3 per cent, NTUC said about 80 per cent, and the Public Service Commission said “a good majority”.
Perhaps what Singapore needs is an Equal Opportunities Commission like Hong Kong’s, which handled 20,852 enquiries and 1,230 complaints in 2009.
Cutting wages is but one aspect of the problems that older workers face. Another is re-employment when they reach their retirement age.
According to a Channel NewsAsia report, “15% of private companies with re-hire policy for staff at 62 didn’t offer re-employment.” (Channel News Asia, Jun 4)
Also: “15 per cent of private companies with re-employment policy did not offer to re-hire local employees when they reach 62.”
Since 15 per cent of companies with a re-employment policy said they had not offered to keep workers past 62 (“Most bosses keep workers beyond 62”, ST, Jun 5), how can these companies be classified as having a re-employment policy when no one was offered re-employment?
Also, 36.4 per cent of companies don’t even allow employees to work beyond 62, and four in ten of those that do offer re-employment did not even bother to consult workers approaching 62.
I was surprised that the top reason given by employers, at 81.3 per cent, given for why retirees were not offered a job when they reached retirement age, was: “No suitable job available”. Are employers saying that the job held by an employee when he or she reaches retirement age was not a “suitable” job in the first place?
As to the top reason, at 68.4 per cent, given for why some companies have no re-employment policies, the reason was: “No worker nearing 62″. Is this not an indication that many employers don’t employ older workers?
Considering all the above, I think we may be overly optimistic and complacent by drawing the conclusion that the overall result of the report was that most bosses are convinced of the need to re-employ their workers.
With the current CPF Minimum Sum payout draw-down age already extended to 65 and CPF Life retaining the CPF Minimum Sum (currently $123,000) and the Medisave Required Amount (currently $22,500) at age 55, to pay a monthly life annuity from age 65, how will workers who are not offered comparable re-employment at age 62 survive, if they do have enough funds from 62 to 65?
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Read Part One of this article: Even GLCs are cutting older workers’ pay?
Picture from Senior Aloud blog.
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is there any ways to protest to take our cpf monies now?
i dont want my cpf monies to be locked inside the cpf board. these are my hard earned monies, i want to withdraw it now.
Can TOC come out ideas that all singaporeans can force our garhment to return our CPF monies now and take it all out now?
Yaya, just do it, migrate.
Gd article. Points out what we are not told.More of this.
If everybody are force to retire at 62 and with no income to survive on until 65, they might just died of starvation before the age of 65.
In this case, their CPF monies will goes into their child, who are still working. When this children also died of starvation before 65, all the CPF monies will goes to their off-spring.
The cycle could go over and over again and nobody would have seen any of their monies.
All the CPF monies will forever remains in CPF. Good plan.
There are a lot of cloudy areas in the recommendation for wage cut for workers reaching the age of 60. When it was first rolled out, many unionized companies took advantage of it to slash the older worker’s salary by 10% – regardless whether the worker was still contributing to his work as any of his younger colleagues were doing. This went beyond the recommendation that wage cut should only be made on those whose contribution to their work has seen a decline.
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Where I am, I have seen how the company was quick off the mark to set rigid standards compelling every worker who was 60 and beyond to accept wage cuts of 10%. Those 62 and above were either forced out through retirements or had their terms of employment changed to contractual basis, renewable at the end of each year by means of more stringent assessments.
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As it stands now, the company has put in place some principal guidelines which sounds good on paper but never actually practiced on the ground. Take for example, the guideline that management should take into account a staff’s contribution and his continued ability to contribute effectively to his area of work as the focal point of whether he should have his wage cut or not, most managers would rather help the company save money and go for the wage cut, leaving the poor older worker no option if he wants to stay employed. It’s not as if he can protest his way to having his wage uncut.
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In the current climate where the bottom line matters most, it comes as no surprise that managers would rather help themselves look good by helping the company save cost in whatever way available to them.
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I shared this one year ago: read here: http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/07/tighten-labour-laws-to-protect-older-vulnerable-workers/
I always think that my CPF is my money, and I do not need other people to decide when I should withdraw and how I should withdraw. We are all OLD enough to plan when we are 55, OK?
hire PR can be younger and prettier. hire 2 non-residents can be twice as young and pretty.
it was already stated that once an F&B outlet like coffee shop hires like 7 singaporeans and 3 malaysians, it can hire many non-residents. no mention of how many non-residents it can hire – presumably there’s no limit. maybe can hire 30, 40.
I think nowaday only the fittests can survive.
We have to prepare for the worst!
I have a simple qns.
How many senior employees (>60 years) are employed by the public sector in regular & permanent positions?
For that matter, how many employees with disabilities or people who are ex-inmates are employed by the public sector in regular & permanent positions?
So much for the talk about re-employment, employment for disabilities, and yellow ribbon. What happened to “lead by example”?
It is the usual tactic of PAP (aided by the media) to confuse the people by issuing misleading and half-truths statements.
I think PAP’s message to the people is: You cannot retire because we will not support you financially. So you just have to work, for lower pay, till you die.
The motto of Lim Swee Say the clown says it all: “cheaper, better, faster” and “better, betterer and betterest”.
PAP is already cutting pay of workers aged 50 and above via the CPF. Isn’t this so unfair already?
Iam unemployed during my last 9-years. I born here, grow up here, study hard here,live here, build my family and die here where I have no other place to go. I studied hard and went for job training for 4-years. I applied many jobs which is pertaining to my training but my applications were rejected many times for no apparent reasons. [both the private and the government link-companies that I tried]. During the last 9-years, I noticed foreign talents are alreadly landed here to take away our jobs that the locals wanted. Therefore, my job was displaced by the foreigners. Now, my health is not so good as before.
All Gov agency follow LKY style.
Retired GKS when they reach 50s and replaced by his younger scholars.
Go to any Gov agency. Either they sub con low value jobs or replaced the old timer with younger ones.
So private sector also follow the gov sectors.
That is life!
PAP have had given stinkaporeans the short shrifts for donkey years ago and many moons ago.
I am in the area of insurance/financial planning. As a planner, we have seen thru the decades, various cpf policy changes pertaining to housing, insurance, investment – all these we have examined and concluded that years beginning from the SHARES for all Singaporeans those days with Singtel listing, (remember we were almost promised Stinkaporeans participating in the listing of PSA, CAAS, now all these are fkng BULLSHITS!!)the PAP gahmen have been scheming how to maximise stinkaporeans cpfs accounts yet allowing it to be emptied for housing, for stocks buying, for education, for old age etc – and these fkg scholars cud not, and definitely not able to juggle soooo many financial needs with your CPFOA alone !!! Remember CPF contributions was a SOLID 40%, and pap gahmen paid interests on CPF as high as 5% if I remember correctly.
IT CAN NEVER NEVER BE enough to have CPFOA/SA fulfill so many financial need s that the bloody pap fklg gahmen want us to believe it can be done and they can do it – my balls !!!
Not for the benefit of our rice bowls tho it was and is part of it – we have been telling Stinkaporeans to plan AND LOOK AFTER THEIR OWN Backsides – but sadly all our cajoles fallen on deaf years.
Let me emphasise here as a singaporean, and lay citizen – THERE IS NO FKG WAY THAT THIS FKG PAP GAHMEN can keep their promises of More good Years. Why, the good old days of Europe, Japan and USA sustaining the prosperity of the world IS LONG LONG GONE – dont let PAP bulshit U!!! It has bitten dust, its history..
China is not, India is not – for goodness sake. These 2 countries cannnot , and WILL not shoulder even half in the next 10 years what Europe,Japan, USA combined had done for the whole world from the 70′s, 80′s to 90′s. And least, we also talk about BRIC another fallacy.
BTW I am no economist – but I have a brain and common sense which is not so common. Thank you.
Thank you Sze Hian for your good work again. As usual policies like these are lip service and half baked mud pies.If they want to talk about employing older workers then go all the way. I am sure their scholars are smart enough to come up with solutions. My bet is they gave the solutions but will always told to take the lowest one.
aiyoh, just get data from cpf board loh, i thought they got so many software & computer experts.
just pull out info from cpf database and do the filtering trick lah – on the contribution (or reducing contribution) & or non-contribution on the different age groups in different periods. crude way of assessment, nevertheless the picture will ring loud and clear
Macro vs Micro.
Singapore’s gov agencies and leaders, always tend to look at things at a macro level.They try to fudge & fix them from top down. This has been PAP’s policy.
In the early days, it has worked very well, however, the current maturing economic society is finding it too hard and some people do get stuck in the cracks or slip and fall between the cracks.
The only way to stop this and to come up tops, is to form a union or like what the author has suggested a free & independent…. Equal Opportunities Commission like Hong Kong’s.
This micro management policies are the best way forward, if we Singaporeans want to solve issues from housing to transportation, health care and electricity pricing.
Or perhaps support any political party which wants to work with a bottom up approach. This is the only way we can prevent Singaporeans from falling, maybe squeezed but never falling and caught up in a vicious cycle along with their kids.
It is a tedious but sure a completely satisfy outcome. When you & I as citizens know that Singaporeans are safe and ok.
What’s the point of having fudged stats and not knowing who is stuck where, worst especially when you are much older.
I did read somewhere, Singapore has the highest suicide rate among the elderly, correct me if I am wrong. If true, why perpectuate it, till we come to that point.
the bloomin cpf in my mind is still a legalized highway robber..till now after my belated pop demised..it claimed my belated pop hav a NIL balance..i didn’t get a single penny from my belated pop cpf account whether in medicsaves/shields or whatever..
CPF board may you/your CEOs/planner rot in disease stricken illness till you are 90 ears ole!
Cpt statement is ours. As for the sum turn into hard cash. Fat hope or wait long long.
insightful,sze hian.
in fact,the issues at hand are more severe.
no need to wait till one is in the 62-65 age bracket.As it is,many much younger than 50 are feeling the heat.
many white-collared workers and executives have been forced out of jobs and most are either underemployed or still unemployed.
many more have their scarce savings depleted or are being depleted in our high cost of living environment.
it is sad to note that the govt keep handing our decent jobs to foreigners and asking citizens to take up low-end jobs that pay insufficiently for their basic upkeeping.
in effect,even with so-called jobs created,there is a NETT ELEMENT of DECREASED DISPOSABLE INCOME for singaporeans and the economy as a whole,suffers the consequence of inadequate consumption to propel real growth.
Most FTs from INDIA ,CHINA AND OTHER COUNTRIES remit the bulk of their earnings back home creating causing a fall in total consumption ultimately.
This govt is just too daft to understand the undoing of our economy by their very foolish policies.
With Government Linked Companies being the employer to the bulk of Singaporeans, has the MOM directed such a survey to the various GLC’s ?
From the events that unfolded in 2004 through 2005, when so many Sngaporean workers – Male and Female – aged between 45 to 60 were retrenched, the bulk of these age group found jobs at a lower seniority or pay, and few were called back for the same position or wage levels.
If GLCs does not lead the way, why make the other Singapore SME be the brunt of the snide conclusion from this survey ?
Many of the NTUC agreement to change labor policies were agreed to as the main beneficiary would be th GLCs.
Such changes will include the dubious arrangement that short term employment contract is to allow employers the flexibility to adjust labor according to economic conditions without the burden of retrenchment costs.
At the end, it is the Singaporean worker bearing the costs of such changes, which affect the family, the quality of life, and the insecurity in making arrangements for long term financial plans.
Is there any further surprises that the Pro Alien Government can produce to shock Singaporeans ?
The saying you can’t teach old dogs new tricks is quite true when applied to senior Singaporeans.
These old fuddy duddies put the PAP in power year after year. Now that they discovered their CPF is not enough to see them through, they seek to work but companies don’t want them because they are slower, and more expensive than foreigners.
Being screwed by the PAP, these old folks still vote for them PAP.
We can’t help it when age catches up, but to be old and stupid, that is the lot of Singapore senior citizens.
They are just too fearful to vote out the PAP.
I just cannot stand the thought that MOM tries to bluff… Grrrrrr….
How STUPID does the government think we are? They don’t allow pple to withdraw CPF until 65, companies don’t hire people after 60, new legislation to force children to support elderly parents… This government is so FULL OF BULLSHIT.
Be prepared to sleep on the streets and then get rounded up to woodbridge when you turn 60 if you don’t have kids.
They don’t allow pple to withdraw CPF until 65, companies don’t hire people after 60
time to vote out the PAP and please for god sake lee kuan yew please step down.
enough of him and his never ending archiving and non stop squeezing.
we are force to live with minimum wages with high cost of living and cpf being seize till we die and pay and pay.
they don’t even help us poor and unable singaporeans and demand us to work even harder. fool us no more!
here we stop!!
vote them out!!!
We pay them to create new measures to reduce our income.
year after years of winning elction voted by us singaporeans and this is what they give us??
we have tell everyone of our friends and relative and old folks about all this dirty pap/gov news and they are very upset to see the news that wasn’t even publish in the strait times. they ask why is it so that the government hiding all this news??
print out every copy and show them lor…
nothing wrong to share the news since strait times not sharing. maybe off budget coz our government have to spend their billions in their own interest ma…
haiz…,
No re-emploment at 62, all you guys are jokers, so many of my friends in late 30′s and early 40′s already given the knife and many still cannot get a job even after willing to cut the salary expectation by half. So, don’t talk about 62 yet, lets talk about keeping your job in your 40′s.
Please take note,
“ALL YOUR MONEY IN CPF BELONGS TO THE GOV”
and “NOT” to YOU.
Wake up, you people have been BRAINWASHED and SOILED because you and all baby boomers and your parents have choosen the PAP.
reminds you of some place ???
read the comments….
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/why-isnt-investment-higher/
in singapore, government will not care for you. pap only care about money making. We, the singaporeans are just pawn to them. They are the elite and we are the peasants.
“how many companies re-employ older workers?”
This is too open a question.
1. hiring 1 out of 10000 workers is also hiring older worker.
2. hiring in which year? 10 years ago? that is also employ older worker.
Does singaporeans care about these issues?
come on, we are talking about singaporeans here. They accept many things and are contented.
Yo! sPore!
You all anyone got the answers or not?
Who really knows the Statistics?
Who really knows the fundings?
Who really knows about anything?
sporeans really know or not?? huh???!
They’re a bunch of great tricksters employing low class tactics and with their foul lips to convince us of their policies of doing it for the benefit of the masses.We’re now at the cross-road in determining our future as well as our decendants.If we still can’t stand together and fight for our legitimate rights,then the future will be Bbleak!
I don’t think the policy makers have any idea that in the 55-65 years old band now, we already have a substantial no. of even Singaporeans high flyers (not necessarily scholars), who are out of jobs in the private sector. This age band is already starting to recede to lower age groups. These are people who are out of jobs, are no less competent than those in the public sector. I have nothing against having any mentor in the public sector, but don’t expect this kind of opportunities to the same extent in the private sector.
@JW – 9 July 2010
//The saying you can’t teach old dogs new tricks is quite true when applied to senior Singaporeans.
These old fuddy duddies put the PAP in power year after year. Now that they discovered their CPF is not enough to see them through, they seek to work but companies don’t want them because they are slower, and more expensive than foreigners.
Being screwed by the PAP, these old folks still vote for them PAP.
We can’t help it when age catches up, but to be old and stupid, that is the lot of Singapore senior citizens.
They are just too fearful to vote out the PAP.//
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Which age group would you consider to be the “senior citizens” and the “old duddy fuddies that put the PAP in power year after year” ?
Considering that since leaving Malaysia in 1965, parliamentary elections have been held every 4 years, and there has been only ten general elections. [See Ref #1]
From 1965 onwards, anyone at age 21 who had had voted would be 66 years old now.
With each General Elections since 1988, when the GRC was introduced, there had been only five held; and the number of constituencies with walk-over to the PAP increasing at each election that leaves almost half the electorate sitting at home – how many of these ‘old duddy fuddies’ could have elected the PAP into power ?
In any case, if you look at the Population Statistics [Ref #2] the bulk of the population is between the age group of 25 to 54 forming 1,629,600; while the age group 55 to 85+ only formed 461,500.
Did the ‘old duddy fuddies’ put the PAP in power at each election, or was it not the case of the PAP fixing the election process to their own advantage and win at each election ?
Considering that the last election in 2006 saw the PAP getting 748,130 votes out of a count of 1,123,273 – when the registered lists had 2,117,840 voters – the PAP had actually won with support from only 35.33% of the voters when almost half of the registered voters were sitting at home.
Try digesting the reference site [Ref #3] below instead of making wild and unsubstantiated statements that split Singapore Society.
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Ref #1 – Singapore Parliamentary Elections
http://www.singapore-elections.com/
Ref #2 – Statistics – Age Profile of Resident Population, Table 2, PDF Page 12 of 72
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/popn/population2009.pdf
Ref #3 – Election Strategy and Ethnic Politics in Singapore – Joel S Fetzer
http://www.tfd.org.tw/docs/dj0401/135-154-Joel%20S.%20Fetzer.pdf
kf 11 July 2010 I don’t think the policy makers have any idea that in the 55-65 years old band now, we already have a substantial no. of even Singaporeans high flyers (not necessarily scholars), who are out of jobs in the private sector.
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in the uniformed sectors when your age is 45…be prepared for ord
The sinking lky-pap govt does things in the following manner:
1. Management BY Crisis!
2. As they manage by Reactions to Crisis after Crisis.
3. Explain away their Management By Crisis causing failures with more and more Mind Boggling reactionary responses to legitimate “Constructive Feedback” (GCT invited for more!). And with even MORE MIND BOGGLING “low class pappy type comments” to TOGGLE away TRUTHS of their utter lack of vision and forward planning and/or implementations! To Blow AWAY SUBSTANTIVE CAUTIONS given by Singaporeans “to ill the winds” of lky-pap deception.
4. When all else fails, go into damage control like saying even by PM-LHL that “It is unrealistic to expect Singapore to be flood free”? What a murky, deception milking and “UNtalented” way by pro-talented talents self promoted by you know who!
See what I mean, they know something IS VERY WRONG from their implementations ONLY WHEN they’ve got some kind of “statistics in hand”! MEANING: ALWAYS “wiser” ONLY in hindsight! Toperest talents indeed!
if company only employ old ppl….how to compete…..esp china/india….they employ young boys….cheap and fast….u think so easy to make money…..then u try start a company and only employ senior……so how long u can business last…..
The other question should be:
How many Government-linked Companies re-employ older workers?
How many older workers have the Government and its numerous institutions re-employed?
For every foreign worker employed, every older worker (above retirement age) should be employed. This will ensure good income distribution and employment.
Period.
MM wisdom is far reachable to any common brain, his thoughts might not be appreaciated now but it is typically futuristic, you will understand when the whole world practices this, which is when you ppl wil appreciate, dont just wait to complain , look deep into the issue, no retirement means, an active mind, age is just psychological weight, so wat if u r 60, that dosent mena one have to be fored to be sat down, am sure many retirees felt the pain sitting at home as a retiree, MM did the right thing. Sticking to retirmrnt is like sticking to a cassette player. Think broad dude, we r in Singapore
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Just migrate before u retire and withdraw your assets. buy a small house and car then semi retire by working part-time oversea.
From my view. CPF is name, a building.
Actual fact. Inside is empty.
Even if you migrate and want to get all your money out. I think it is hard also.
If not for your writing this topic could be very covnouletd and oblique.