Singapore Enhances Paid Family Care Leave Entitlements for Employees and Introduces Financial Support for Retrenched Employees

A summary of these upcoming changes is set out below:

1. Additional Two Weeks of Paid Paternity Leave made Compulsory from 1 April 2025

In Budget 2023, it was announced that working fathers, who meet the eligibility conditions, will be entitled to a total of four weeks (up from two) of paid paternity leave. However, the additional two weeks were to be provided by employers on a voluntary basis.

From 1 April 2025, this will no longer be the case – all employers are required to provide eligible working fathers with four weeks of paid paternity leave.

2. Changes to Shared Parental Leave from 1 April 2025

Under the current scheme, eligible working mothers can share up to four weeks of their paid maternity leave with their spouses. This will, however, be replaced with a new share parental leave scheme.

This new scheme will allow eligible parents to take up to 10 weeks of share parental leave between themselves. To allow employers time to adopt, the new scheme will be implemented in two phases.

• From 1 April 2025: Shared parental leave will be increased to 6 weeks.
• From 1 April 2026: Shared parental leave will be increased to 10 weeks.

By default, each parent is allocated half of the shared parental leave. However, parents have the flexibility to reallocate the leave between themselves within the first four weeks of the child's birth using the LifeSG app. In addition, the shared parental leave must be consumed within the first 12 months of the child’s birth.

3. Financial Support for Retrenched Employees

To assist the lower-income and middle-income workers who have lost their jobs involuntarily, the new SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support Scheme is introduced to give them temporary financial support. Under this scheme, workers will be entitled to up to $6,000 over up to six months. The first payout will be based on the individual’s monthly basic salary (capped at $1,500) prior to being retrenched and progressively reduced over the next few months. The payouts will also stop once an individual secures employment. This scheme will be open to Singapore Citizens from April 2025 and then progressively expanded to include Permanent Residents from the first quarter of 2026. An individual must also fulfil other conditions related to their pre-retrenchment employment status and the value of the property that they currently reside in. In addition, the individual has to be actively engaging in job search and related activities, such as attend training, career coaching and job matching.

However, this scheme is not intended to replace retrenchment benefits or reduce the payment of retrenchment benefits by employers. This scheme supplements the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment. The Government’s expectation that employers provide some form of retrenchment benefits will remain (if not, become stricter), following its own commitment to protecting employees from the blow of losing their jobs.

These measures signal a growing focus on employee welfare. As the employment law landscape shifts slowly in Singapore, in anticipation of the Workplace Fairness Legislation that is likely to be implemented at the end of the year, topics around discrimination based on family status are likely to grow in importance for HR teams.

This article is produced by our Singapore office, Bird & Bird ATMD LLP. It does not constitute as legal advice and is intended to provide general information only. Information in this article is accurate as of 3 September 2024.