Singapore: Expansion of Progressive Wage Model Forthcoming

Companies hiring foreign national workers are required to comply with the existing Progressive Wage Model (PWM) scheme (in addition to the existing Local Qualifying Salary scheme) by paying at least the relevant Progressive Wage to their local workers in applicable job roles, and at least the Local Qualifying Salary to all other local workers. Local workers benefit from the PWM scheme by getting a scheduled pathway for wage increases along with training and other career improvement opportunities. As of September 1, 2022, companies that fail to comply with the PWM and LQS schemes will not be allowed to apply for new work passes or apply extensions for existing ones. This coincided with the recent expansion of the scheme for local employees in the retail sector. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) announced that the PWM will be extended to cover local workers in the food services sector, as well as administrators and drivers in all sectors starting March 1, 2023, and further expanded to cover the Waste Management sector starting July 1, 2023. Furthermore, the MOM is requesting for consent from companies to access their Occupational Employment Datasets (OED), which includes information such as employee identity card numbers, contractual work hours, PWM job descriptions, etc., to assess PWM requirements. Although consenting to the government’s use of the OED is not mandatory, companies may encounter issues in applying for work passes for foreign nationals in the future because of non-participation.