SINGAPORE: Fewer employees lodged claims designed for salary disputes plus wrongful dismissals last year as employment standards improved amid the country’s economic recuperation from the COVID-19 outbreak.
Official figures published upon Monday (Jul 18) showed the overall amount of employment claims and appeals lodged using the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and the Tripartite Alliance for Question Management (TADM) “fell significantly” from second . 59 in 2020 to 1. 73 for each 1, 000 workers in 2021. Claims fell for each local and foreign employees.
The majority of the 5, 882 employment claims and is of interest were salary promises (4, 848) and dismissal claims (922).
Local employees accounted for 64 percent of all employment states and appeals, while foreign employees constructed the remaining 36 percent.
These were some of the findings in the Employment Specifications Report 2021 released upon Monday.
“I think this is a good yr… this is mainly because i was coming out of a very challenging COVID year, and the economy is enhancing, ” said Mr Kandhavel Periyasamy, common manager of TADM.
“When companies are doing well, employers by-and-large are responsible and this (is) seen in better reports across the board. ”
FEWER INCOME DISPUTES IN SOLUTIONS SECTOR
Among local employees, the decline was partly driven by a drop in salary states in the services sector, which saw substantial economic growth in 2021.
Among the foreign employees, states fell sharply within the construction sector, due in part to Mother’s “upstream interventions” in order to tackle non-payment of salaries over the last 2 yrs, said the ministry and TADM inside a press release.
TADM also “proactively” engaged employers to ensure salaries were compensated to about 24, 000 foreign employees in 2021, so they did not have to lodge formal salary states, said the release.
GREATER PROPORTION OF RECOVERED SALARIES
TADM and the Work Claims Tribunals helped 95 per cent of workers who stuck salary claims recuperate their salaries completely, compared with 92 % in 2020.
Another several per cent recovered their own salaries partially via other means, as well as the remaining 2 % who did not recover any salaries had been mainly higher revenue earners who did not qualify for financial relief.
The total recovered sum amounted to S$8. 6 million in 2021, down from S$15 million in 2020, since the number of claims had been smaller.
Companies who did not fully repay their employees had their work pass privileges hanging, said MOM and TADM in their release, adding that less than 1 per cent of the salary claims stuck in 2021 involved wilful employers who refused to pay in spite of having the means to achieve this.
WRONGFUL DISMISSALS
The incidence of wrongful dismissal claims fell through 0. 39 in 2020 to 0. 27 per 1, 000 employees in 2021.
From the wrongful dismissal claims assessed by TADM, 26 per cent were substantiated.
A big proportion of unsubstantiated claims arose from miscommunication between the company and employee over issues such as function performance, said the discharge. The employers acquired fulfilled their contractual or statutory obligations of employment termination with notice.
Overall, more than 9 in 10 income claims and 8 in 10 wrongful dismissal claims had been dealt with within 8 weeks of lodging what he claims at TADM – an improvement from 2020.
With regard to salary claims, the particular improvement was largely due to a drop within the number of claims lodged in 2021.
For dismissal promises, the improvement might be partly attributed to the particular easing of COVID-19 restrictions, which permitted people to resolve their differences in person with help from mediators.
TEMPORARY STEPS TO BE REMOVED
MOM said that from Aug 1, it can remove some short-term measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic which were originally implemented to cope with disruptions to company operations.
For instance , a requirement to notify the ministry of cost-saving actions that affect workers’ salaries, and a good advisory to companies on retrenchment benefits.
This is due to the continual fall in number of notifications and assistance searched for under the measures, stated MOM and TADM in their press release.
In March 2020, MOM introduced a requirement for employers with more than 10 employees in order to notify MOM if they implement any cost-saving measures that impacted employees’ monthly salaries.
The amount of employers submitting new cost-saving notifications provides decreased to a month-to-month average of eight in the initial quarter of 2022, from the peak of just one, 713 employers in the beginning of the circuit breaker in April 2020.
In May 2020, the ministry issued an advisory that provided employers more flexibility on retrenchment benefit payments in view of the difficult economic conditions then.
The number of instances of employees searching for assistance on retrenchment benefits has given that declined to a month-to-month average of 8 cases in the very first quarter of the calendar year, compared to its top of 198 instances in August 2020.
OTHER PROCEDURES TO IMPROVE EMPLOYMENT REQUIREMENTS
A website for online challenge resolution (ODR) will be enhanced, said the discharge.
By 2023, the enhanced ODR portal will make use of artificial intelligence to steer parties based on common scenarios so that they can arrive at a fair settlement.
In 2021, about 430 claims had been processed via the website, of which 32 per cent were resolved by the parties themselves.
Another 56 percent were concluded practically, where the mediator used the ODR portal to facilitate conversations involving the parties and guidebook them to reach an answer.
MOM also launched the particular Workright School Collection in 2022, a number of talks and events to graduating learners in Institutes better Learning on employment rights.
As of May, close to 650 graduating college students from ITE University East and ITE College Central possess attended the talks and events.
From March in order to December 2021, the ministry also used data analytics to distinguish and audit businesses that were at risk of not complying with Progressive Wage Model (PWM) wages.
About 90 companies were found not complying with PWM wages, and regulatory activity such as warnings plus financial penalties is going to be taken.