What is the Singapore Employment Act?

A number of common regulations apply relating to employee duties, rights and benefits and those of the employer in Singapore. A summary of those follows.

Payment

The salary period is the time frame when the salary should be paid which should not go beyond a month. The employer will set the date but if they don’t, it will automatically be set at one month. The timeframe will be no later than 7 days after the salary period ends. Overtime payment will be within 14 days after the period ends.

Rest days – work hours/other service conditions

This section’s regulation is offer added protections for:

• Workmen with salaries less than $4500 per month
• Non Workmen with salaries less than $2600 per month

Executives and managers aren’t covered under these regulations. The guidelines cover the following for these staff:

• Breaks: There needs to be a 45 minute break if you work for an 8-hour continuous shift. During a 6-hour continuous shift, there should also be a break.
• Work hours:  As a rule, normal work hours when working a 5-day week will be 9 hours each day for a 44-hour week. If you work over 5 days in a week, you will work an 8-hour day for a 44-hour week.

The employer and employee can negotiate a contract to further discuss working hours, however, a staff member cannot work longer than a 12-hour shift unless there are extenuating circumstances where the employer makes a specific request. This can include:

• An unexpected disruption in work
• Urgent plant or equipment operation
• National defence, community life, security protections
• Accident or incident

There are situations where the employer can make the request for a 12 hour+ shift by submitting an application to “MOM” for permission but the shift cannot exceed 14 hours.

• Overtime: Overtime hours exceed the standard working hours  excluding breaks. Salary will be  at least 1.5 times the basic hourly rate. An employee can only have 72 overtime hours.  If an employer needs more than that, they must submit an application to MOM. Exclusions will apply to overtime hours as outlined in the guidelines.
• Rest Days: Stagg members are entitled to a rest day each week without salary which will be decided by the employer. There should only be 12 days maximum timespan between two rest days. If there’s an urgent reason the employee must work on a rest day, the salary should be increased substantially, i.e.”2 days’ salary + overtime pay.”

Holidays

Singapore has 11 official holidays with each employee entitled to be paid for these. If the staff is urgently required to work, they should receive a basic day’s salary and then substitute another day agreed upon with the employer to take off. If the holiday falls on a rest day or another non-working day, the staff has a choice to take the next paid day off or for the non-working day, they can choose to receive an extra day’s pay.

Annual leave

When you work for three months with an employer you’re entitled to paid annual leave as follows:

• With 12 months of continuous employment, you’ll receive 7 days of annual leave with an additional day for every 12 months thereafter
• The maximum annual leave allowed is 14 days per year

If an employee misses work without a reasonable explanation or without the employer’s permission for 20 percent or more days per month or annually, the employer can take annual leave from the employee.

Sick leave

The employee is entitled to paid sick leave based on their service time with the employer. In order to use sick leave, the staff member needs to offer a medical certificate from a healthcare practitioner for their employer. The doctor needs to be registered under the “Medical Registration Act.” The same is true for dentists, “Dental Registration Act.” This will allow you to receive sick pay.

Employment termination with notice

The employment contract can be terminated by either the employee or the employer each of whom have this right when giving adequate notice with the date of termination. 

Employment termination without notice

Both the employer and the employee have the option of terminating the work contract without giving notice before the contract’s term date.  This would involve paying what would have accrued during a typical notice period in gross salary to the other party. 

The contract can also be terminated without notice if either the employer or employee violates the contracts terms or conditions purposefully.

Dismissal

An employer has the right to dismiss an employee from their position without notice due to misconduct pertaining to the contract terms or conditions. The employer can also suspend a staff member without pay for a specified period no longer than a week or downgrade their role. 

If the employee feels they’ve been wrongfully dismissed they can submit a claim to be reinstated with back pay or receive compensation as deemed by the Tribunal.