Employee Benefit News for Employers in Singapore

Mandatory employee benefits in Singapore are likely to remain the same with the ruling party recently reelected to power, but not without losing seats in parliament despite generous subsidies to help combat the pandemic’s impact. There are changes occurring in supplementary benefits however.

Update on Employee Benefits in Singapore

• Health plans continue to cover COVID-19.
• Worker’s compensation covers injuries while working from home, and claims like this will likely be challenging for insurers to rectify. Read more
• New ‘work from home insurance’ is being marketed. This covers mental health, ergonomic injury, and domestic perils like burns or falls. Mental health coverage is especially important for a workforce that already works long hours and now tends to stretch work time even longer while working from home.

Foreign Workers Heavily Impacted

• Sixty thousand foreigners have been laid off from Singapore’s 3.5-million-person workforce.
• Foreign workers are needing to fend for themselves, which has escalated purchasing individual health insurance policies for themselves and their families.

Singapore’s Employer Trends

• Employers are not cutting benefits unless benefit costs are increasing drastically.
• Retail and hospitality sectors are letting people go.
• Employers are beginning to have employees return to the office, but not in full force. The expectation is employees should work from home if at all possible.

This article is provided by Galaxy, Asinta’s Partner in Singapore.