With compliance rates high, there is no need to raise penalties for late retrenchment notifications: Tan See Leng

[SINGAPORE] There is no need for the government to impose harsher penalties on employers that do not comply with mandatory retrenchment notices as the current compliance rate remains high, said Manpower Minister Tan See Leng on Tuesday (May 5).

Speaking in Parliament, he noted that most employers submit such notifications within the deadline and that most late submissions were due to administrative oversights.

Under the rules, firms with 10 or more employees have to submit a mandatory retrenchment notification to the Ministry of Manpower within five working days of notifying employees of their retrenchment.

Citing data from 2025, he shared that about 77 per cent of employers submitted the notifications at least seven days ahead of the employee’s last working day. This is an improvement from the 70 per cent in 2024.

Dr Tan also said that 73 per cent of the notices were submitted at least two weeks ahead.

“The compliance rate has been high. We don’t see a need to raise the penalties at this point in time,” said the minister in response to a query from Pioneer Member of Parliament Patrick Tay.

Tay had earlier asked if the government would consider having more and stricter penalties against non-compliant employers.

Dr Tan said that non-compliance results in a penalty of S$1,000 for the first contravention and S$2,000 for subsequent lapses. For late submissions, a caution letter will issued.

He also said that as part of an ongoing review of the Employment Act, tripartite partners are now studying how to encourage earlier notification by employers – both to affected staff and to the government.

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“In particular, we would like to see notification to the government happening before or by the employee’s last working day as far as possible,” said Dr Tan.

“This will enable timely employment facilitation support and outplacement services for the affected employees,” he said, adding that an update on the tripartite discussions would be provided when ready.