The Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) Research and Statistics Department has released its Report on Wage Practices 2013 and it shows that the Labour Movement’s efforts to improve the lot of local workers have paid off.
Basic wage increases for rank-and-file workers (5.4%) have surpassed that for non rank-and-file (4.7%). This means that the lower 20th percentile have benefitted.
All workers are also better paid. Real and gross total wages have increased compared to 2012 and there has been a rise in uptake of flexible wage measures at the workplace.
In his Facebook posting on the same day, NTUC Deputy Secretary-General, Heng Chee How, said, “MOM’s Report on Wage Practices showed all round real wage growth.”
“The tight labour market amid continued strong economic fundamentals and more explicit NWC recommendations for the low wage workers helped,” he added.
Efforts on the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) must be relentless and pervasive in all sectors and for all workers, noted NTUC Assistant Secretary-General, Cham Hui Fong, in her response to MOM’s Report.
“Ultimately, the end-goal in mind is for our workers to benefit from real and continuous wage growth. We also call on employers to tap on the various funding schemes and programmes, so as to achieve higher productivity growth,” she said.
She added that employment rate has been on the upward trend even for industries where productivity is low and that NTUC will strongly encourage these industries to move towards manpower-lean processes to strive for higher productivity.
Report’s Key Findings
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Original article written by Naseema Banu Maideen, and can be found in NTUC This Week (15 June 2014)
