By Fawwaz Baktee and Shukry Rashid
Ageing Population
“The Silver Support scheme helps to support the elderly in old age, given the increase in our aging population. The CPF changes will also help to contribute more to the retirement savings in old age. Most SMEs can’t prioritise employee upgrading due to their tight budget, so it’s good that the government came up with the SkillsFuture initiative to let individual employees be in control of their own upgrading.” Soh Chee Wee, 40, Accounting Manager
SkillsFuture And CPF
“The SkillsFuture Credit of $500 is not really much, but at least we are able to accumulate the money over a period to choose the upgrading courses we want. At the moment, I’m interested to take an upgrading course related to Food and Beverage. This initiative was a positive step towards making Singaporean lives better. The CPF’s 2% contribution rate increase can help lower-wage workers to save more. In the long run, I understand that we are able to accumulate more savings in our account although 2% may seem insignificant.” Mallika Periasamy, 44, Math Instructor
Career Training
“The SkillsFuture Credit is good for us Singaporeans so that we can benefit from it, to upgrade ourselves and can be used for future career training… My line (of work) is customer service, so I think I would pick up courses that are related to my job like communications.” Suhailah Mohd Zin, 29, Admin Executive
CPF – Raising The Salary Ceiling
“The increased CPF salary ceiling is good because the cost of living is becoming higher… Otherwise if you don’t raise and it remains as it is, you’ll be getting little payouts... By the time you receive payouts at the age of 65, a bowl of rice which is $3.50 now, may be $5 in 10 years’ time. So I think it’s good that they raised the salary ceiling, so that when the time comes [during the drawdown age], CPF gives more payouts.” Puah Kok Leong, 57, Facilities Management Manager
Helping Older Singaporeans
“The Silver Support scheme helps older Singaporeans. I think some sort of welfare should be given to them in old age… I suggest that the Government increases the CPF contribution rates further in the future. It will be more attractive [for retirement savings]. Molly Chua, 66, Retiree
Source: NTUC This Week
