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Important changes to Singapore employment laws
Recent changes have been made to employment laws in Singapore, and all businesses must now update the way they provide itemised pay slips to their employees.
Below, we outline a summary of the new changes and how to create the new itemised pay slips so that your business stays compliant.
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| Zegal have updated their Itemised Pay Slip document to reflect these changes. Log in to your Zegal account to create the new pay slips for your employee and get compliant today!
Don’t already have itemised pay slips in place? Sign up to a Zegal account today and put itemised pay slips in place for your employees to stay compliant. |
What is an Itemised Pay Slip
It is a pay slip issued by an employer to an employee. Starting 1 April 2016, it is mandatory for employers to issue itemised pay slips to all employees covered by the Employment Act.
When drafting an Itemised Pay Slip, it is important for you to focus on the following:
- Start and end date of the salary period covered by the pay slip;
- Date of payment;
- Amount of payments e.g. basic salary, allowances (including all fixed allowances such as transport, and ad-hoc allowances such as a one-off uniform allowance), overtime pay (set out details including the number of overtime hours worked), and other additional payments (e.g. bonuses, rest day pay, public holiday pay). In the Zegal app, you can also input some details for these items. If the basic salary is calculated by time rate or piece rate, input the basic rate of pay and the total number of hours or days worked or pieces produced;
- Amount of deductions e.g. employee’s contribution to the Central Provident Fund or deductions for no-pay leave or absence from work; and
- Net salary paid in total.
Which of my employees will this effect?
The Employment Act states that everyone who is an employee, local or foreign, full-time or part-time, temporary or permanent, is covered, except:
- Managers and excutives with monthly basic salary of more than SGD 4,500;
- Seafarers;
- Domestic workers; and
- Statutory board employees or civil servants.
When should I issue the Itemised Pay Slip?
Itemised Pay Slips should be given together with payment to your employee, or if this is not possible, you should provide the payslip within three working days of payment.
In the unfortunate event that you terminate or dismiss an employee, you must give them the Itemised Pay Slip together with their outstanding salary.
Do I need to keep a record of the issued Itemised Pay Slips?
Yes. In the case of your current employees, the Itemised Pay Slips must be kept by you for two years. For your former employees, you need to keep Itemised Pay Slips for the last two years of their employment for one year after their employment was terminated.
You should note that from 1 April 2016, all employers must issue itemised pay slips to employees covered by the Employment Act. Failure to issue itemised pay slips could result in a financial penalty, so it’s important that you update your itemised pay slips as soon as possible.
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