Singapore to disburse retirement boost to over 570,000 citizens<\/a><\/p>\nThe work group, which was set up last year to review and refresh Singapore’s senior employment strategy, outlined six recommendations, which the government has accepted.<\/p>\n
Broadly, the moves will help seniors stay employed and return to work after a break; support those who wish to work beyond the statutory retirement and reemployment ages; and provide more targeted support for lower-wage seniors.<\/p>\n
The work group comprises representatives from the Ministry of Manpower, or MOM, the National Trades Union Congress, or NTUC, and the Singapore National Employers Federation, or SNEF.<\/p>\n
Its recommendations follow consultations with more than 1,000 stakeholders, including employers, industry and union representatives, workers, human resource professionals and academics, as well as overseas study trips.<\/p>\n
The workgroup’s report, released on Oct 26, noted that while flexi-place and flexi-time arrangements are fairly common, there is a “significant gap” in flexi-load options for seniors.<\/p>\n
Under MOM’s Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests, flexi-place arrangements allow employees to work from different locations, such as from home, while flexi-time arrangements allow employees to vary their working hours, such as staggered start and end times.<\/p>\n
Flexi-load arrangements, meanwhile, allow employees to take on different workloads with corresponding adjustments to their remuneration.<\/p>\n
Minister of State for Manpower Dinesh Vasu Dash said at a news conference on Oct 26 that the recommendations are meant to help seniors find meaningful and sustainable employment in more flexible ways.<\/p>\n
“For some seniors, this may mean continuing in the same job for longer. For others, it may mean moving into a different role, working at a different pace or adjusting work around changing personal circumstances.<\/p>\n
“What matters is that seniors who wish to continue working have meaningful options to do so,” he said.<\/p>\n
Among full-time resident employees aged 50 to 64, 85.5 percent were offered flexi-time work, 78.7 percent were offered flexi-place arrangements, and 74.5 percent were provided with flexi-load arrangements, according to MOM data for 2024.<\/p>\n
To help seniors who have left the workforce return to employment and encourage wider adoption of flexi-load arrangements, the work group proposed setting up a new flexi-load program and a dedicated program office. This replaces the Part-time Re-employment Grant, which has supported about 68,500 seniors and 7,800 employers.<\/p>\n
The program was developed after drawing on insights gained during the workgroup’s study trip to Japan, which provides its senior workers with tailored support to help them navigate later-life career transitions.<\/p>\n
The Japanese government runs a network of Hello Work public employment offices that help people find jobs and access employment support.<\/p>\n
Lifelong support<\/p>\n
The offices have a “lifelong active worker support desk” that assists elderly job seekers in finding reemployment opportunities, including flexi-load work arrangements.<\/p>\n
The work group acknowledged that companies traditionally structured around full-time work may find it challenging to create flexi-load options and will require additional resources to redesign jobs, systems and policies.<\/p>\n
The new office, led by the Skills and Workforce Development Agency and in collaboration with the NTUC and the SNEF, will push for more ways to help employers defray the costs of developing and implementing flexi-load arrangements.<\/p>\n
Redesigning and breaking jobs down into smaller roles, or job fractionalization, would make it easier to match senior job seekers with employers’ needs.<\/p>\n
ALSO READ: Gray wave<\/a><\/p>\nDinesh cited how the prototypes and solutions developed by the Alliance for Action on Empowering Multi-Stage Careers for Mature Workers have benefited more than 1,600 senior workers.<\/p>\n
Over a year, 30 organizations across six sectors designed, tested and refined these prototypes.<\/p>\n
For example, social service organization Kampong Kapor Community Services has worked with HR firm Marsh People and Investments, formerly known as Mercer, to create alternative employment models such as session-based and case-based roles. Their goal is to attract and retain experienced workers, who may no longer find traditional full-time employment arrangements suitable.<\/p>\n
NTUC deputy secretary-general Desmond Tan said the workgroup’s priority is about giving senior workers choice, assurance and dignity.<\/p>\n
That choice, however, must come with “personal readiness and responsibility”, he said, adding that senior workers can plan early and keep their skills updated to prepare themselves for changes in jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Singapore to raise superannuation age to 65, re-employment age to 70 An elderly traffic duty personnel in Singapore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[28,144,1115,134,22844,3997],"class_list":["post-913521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","tag-business","tag-china","tag-elderly","tag-jobs","tag-retirement-age","tag-singapore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/02f7b5f90ad25bcb1fbe2370d47a448c.jpg\"\/)
An elderly traffic duty personnel in Singapore on March 23, 2026. (ZHOU GUKAI\/FOR CHINA DAILY)<\/p>\n