SeaPRwire

Parliament: Wages at bottom-fifth grew at faster rate than median from 2009 to 2019

aseanpr
5 minutes

SINGAPORE - The real wages of Singaporean and permanent resident lower-wage workers at the 20th percentile grew 39 per cent between 2009 and 2019, faster than that of the workers at the median at 33 per cent. And while the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on these lower-wage workers last year, government schemes have helped to mitigate the impact and bring their wages to the 2019 pre-pandemic levels, said Senior Minister of State for Manpower Zaqy Mohamad in Parliament on Tuesday (July 6). This was a result of policies such as the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) and Workfare to support lower-wage workers, he added. "This has allowed our lower-wage workers to gain ground and progress faster than the median." He was responding to more than a dozen questions filed by MPs from the People's Action Party and the Workers' Party on the PWM. Mr Zaqy noted that while lower-wage workers in Singapore have seen "robust real income growth", this was not the case for most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. "For example, over the same 10-year period, workers at the 20th percentile in the UK saw no real wage growth, while those in Japan and US saw only cumulati...

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SAF to review medical classification system to let more NSmen take on operational roles

aseanpr
4 minutes

SINGAPORE - More national service enlistees will soon be able to take on operational roles within the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), regardless of medical fitness, as the organisation reviews the way it classifies their fitness for different vocations. This is as the SAF introduces new vocations and redesigns existing ones in response to a changing threat environment, such as having cyber specialists to protect key digital networks and systems, Senior Minister of State for Defence Heng Chee How said during the debate over the Ministry of Defence's (Mindef) budget on Monday (March 1). "We are redesigning our Medical Classification System (MCS) and the Physical Employment Standard (PES) System to shift away from the binary classification of combat-fit versus non-combat-fit deployment," he said. "Medical exclusions that used to limit deployments may no longer be relevant in today's operational context or with the latest technology." The current MCS sees full-time national servicemen (NSFs) classified as either combat-fit or non-combat-fit, while the PES system categorises NSFs by suitability for combat vocations, ranging from PES A and B1 for combat vocations to PES F, where they are d...