Employment of older workers in Singapore rose in 2020

The employment of older workers aged 65 and above rose from 27.6% in 2019 to 28.5% in 2020, said Manpower Minister Tan See Leng during a Parliament session.

The employment rate of workers aged 55 to 64 has held steady at over 67%, despite the pandemic, which is comparable to the average of the top three OECD countries, said the minister, according to The Straits Times. 

Currently, the government’s Senior Employment Credit programme provides employers with wage offsets of up to 8% for hiring senior workers aged 55 and above. So far, some 482,000 senior workers have benefited from the scheme. 

Since the programme commenced on January 1 this year, almost S$150 million (US$110.4 million) has been disbursed to 86,000 employers.

Meanwhile, the Senior Worker Early Adopter Grant has helped some 21,000 senior workers from 2,800 companies between July 1, 2020, and August 31 this year. The programme encourages companies to implement a higher internal retirement age and re-employment age above the statutory minimum.

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Over the same period, the Part-time Re-employment Grant has also helped over 19,000 senior workers in about 2,000 companies, supporting employers who commit to a part-time re-employment policy for eligible senior workers.