Singapore employers with at least 10 employees will have to notify the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) of all staff retrenchments or redundancies regardless of the number of employees affected from 1 November.
Employers must file the mandatory retrenchment notification with MOM within five working days of giving notice of retrenchment to affected employees, according to an MOM statement.
The change is being introduced to enable Workforce Singapore (WSG) and the tripartite partners - MoM, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) - to help affected employees find new jobs or obtain relevant training to improve their skills.
Mayumi Soh of Pinsent Masons MPillay, the Singapore joint law venture between MPillay and Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law, said: “The change will make the notification requirement more straightforward as it will be clear to employers when they have to submit a notification. Currently, companies must keep track of how many employees they have retrenched and the timeline in which they have done so.”
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