Minimum Sum
According to the statistics dated 2010, only 40% of active CPF account holders turning 55 years old in 2010 meet the minimum sum of $ 123K. 60% members could not meet the target.
This scheme has been in place since 2003. It was set at $80K and increase $4,000 per year to $120K (in 2003 dollars) by next year. The minimum sum has been increased to $131K since July 2011 to account for inflation.
Questions asked are: Who are the 60% who cannot meet the target? Why set the target where more than half cannot make it after 9 years of implementation?
It is observed that with the allocation of higher % to Medisave and that many members have higher outstanding housing loan payment, the number of CPF members who cannot meet the minimum sum will increase. Many mature workers who are in the middle and lower income groups also feedback that while they have contributed to their CPF, they have to cough out quite a big proportion of cash from their monthly salary to service the housing loan as they do not have enough savings in their ordinary account. The long term plan for these groups of workers to save more for their retirement needs has resulted in the short term “money not enough” issues for them.
With the introduction of CPF Life which is mandatory for all with at least $40K in CPF, may I propose that Government review the principle and basis for setting minimum sum especially to the lower income workers.
CPF LIFE
CPF Life came into Life after the Government accepted the 5 recommendations by the National Committee on Longevity Insurance in 2008.
CPF LIFE was offered to older Singaporeans in 2009 to provide lifelong income for our elderly in their retirement. As it is a new scheme and is an improvement over the minimum sum scheme, many members are not clear of the difference between the two schemes.
May I ask Minister about the lessons learnt from this LIFE and the achievements and impact of the scheme.
With more than 70,000 members signing up for CPF Life, may I know which kind of LIFE is most preferred: LIFE Plus? LIFE Balanced? LIFE Basic or LIFE Income
Many also commented that the four LIFEs are same same but different. But the differences are not much different. Thus, may I ask the Minister whether MOM will fine tune members’ LIFE further?
As CPF Life will be implemented for all members turning 55 next year, it is good that MOM review the scheme at this juncture and make it a Better LIFE!
Mature workers
When the labour movement advocated for the review of CPF rate for mature workers last year, some employers were concerned that it may increase their cost while others thought that that was the adjustment they had to make.
Similarly, many mature workers opined that their CPF should not be reduced just because they hit the age of 50 while other workers, especially the lower wage and contract workers feared that their employers might just lower their wage to offset any increase in CPF.
This is what the Chinese say: “有人欢喜有人愁” Some Happy, Some not Happy.
The announcement of special employment credit indeed made everyone happy as the 8% credit is more than enough to cover the increase in mature workers’ increased CPF rate.
This is a good case of tripartism at work.
However, to achieve the employment rate for older persons (age group 55-64) of 65% for mature workers by 2015, the challenge of how to match the skill gap between the jobs available and the mature workers remains. We need the tripartite effort to resolve the issues at workplace and most of which is how flexible we are in work arrangement.
For Employers, may I suggest, instead of being inclined to ageism, why not starting looking at ways of harnessing the “intrinsic value” of the older employees? There are definitely things which younger persons cannot do as well as older persons; for example judgement based on experience to make business viable”
For Employees, may I suggest, to embrace opportunities given by employers to adopt new ways of applying the tacit knowledge which they possess.
For government, to provide funding on training systems which facilitate such positive shift in employment of older person. Instead of looking at just basic employability and vocational skills, there are soft skills which older persons need to acquire before they can transit to new job roles.”
As we know, there are mature workers who not only need to work but to support the family. There are mature workers who just want a simple job to earn some pocket money. There are also senior citizens who just want to contribute whatever way whether that is volunteer work or simple work. All these three groups of workers need to be reskilled not only to increase productivity but also to enjoy the work they do.
Workplace Safety and Health
Despite stringent measures to ensure workplace safety, workers falling from construction sites and maids falling while cleaning window still happen from time to time.
With more construction work as a result of public housing projects, work at height activities will be increased. If we do not step up our efforts, falling accidents may continue.
Can Minister elaborate on the main causes of fall fatalities and whether MOM will introduce dedicated Work At Height (WAH) regulations to address the problem?
