Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said Singapore will raise the statutory retirement age to 63 and the re-employment age to 68 as planned on July 1 next year. She said 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.
Contribution rates for senior workers to the Central Provident Fund (CPF) will also go ahead on 1 January 2022. The increase would see 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.
