15 percent of
companies do not offer re-employment for older
workers
TEMASEK REVIEW
Despite repeated attempts by the PAP to get companies to
re-employ Singapore workers when they reached the mandatory
retirement age of 62, some 15 percent of companies interviewed in a
survey conducted by the Manpower Ministry still refuse to do
so.
The most common reason given is the lack of “suitable” jobs
followed by poor work attitude and inability to keep up with
changes.
Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong was quick to jump to the defence
of these companies:
“Some of these companies have not put in place these
re-employment practices partly because they still have a very young
work force. Some of them are small companies that just started up
so their workforce is still very young and they have not thought
about it. Some of them have not put in place these re-employment
(practices) because they were restructuring. They do not have
opportunities for these older workers,” he was quoted as
saying in Channel News Asia.
With the inevitable aging of the Singapore labor force, the PAP
is trying desperately hard to retain as many elderly Singaporeans
in the workforce as possible to lessen the burden for the
state.
Singaporeans are constantly being exhorted by PAP leaders to
work for as long as they can while remaining “cheaper, better and
faster” at the same time.
There are no labor laws put in place requiring companies to
re-hire Singaporeans. As such, employees are at the complete mercy
of their employers.
Neither are there independent trade unions to fight for the
interests of these workers. The only legal trade union in Singapore
NTUC is a pseudo-PAP organization which is always led by a PAP
minister.
Though Singapore is the second richest country in Asia after
Japan, its citizens enjoy few social welfare benefits from the
government.
A growing number of Singaporeans will need to work well beyond
their retirement ages to support themselves because they simply do
not have sufficient savings in the bank or CPF to depend on.
