So what does MOM has to say about this?
According to a survey by JobStreet.com, about 30 per cent of respondents said they did not receive any annual wage supplement (AWS) last year.
Conducted by the job portal in January, the survey gathered and analysed responses from over 400 participants, a sample that’s representative of various industries including the manufacturing, education, accounting and medical sectors.
Considering the uncertain outlook of Singapore’s job market—a topic that has been making table talk for many Singaporeans for a while now—and the all-time-high local unemployment and layoffs, such a finding might not come as a surprise to many; but, people aren’t going to stop complaining.
Although the Ministry of Manpower clearly states that the AWS is not compulsory and payment depends on what is in your employment contract or collective agreement, netizens argue that it should be as workers are typically underpaid on most months except for February. According to blogger A Singaporean In Australia, a simple way to calculate this and put it into perspective would be:
There are 4 weeks in 1 month.
You get paid 12 times a year.
12 × 4 = 48
Therefore, you get paid for 48 weeks worth of work.
However, there are 52 weeks in a year.
52 − 48 = 4
Therefore, there are 4 weeks in a year that go unpaid.
After all, the Ministry of Manpower calls it the 13th month payment, not a performance bonus, therefore this argument is, to some degree, valid:
As much as it is flawed:
Although the Ministry of Manpower clarified on its website that the AWS is not compulsory and dedicated a page to educate Singaporeans on how their monthly salary is calculated, it does not provide an apparent definition of what the AWS constitutes. That, perhaps, has coloured in a grey area on the topic of an employee’s rightful entitlement.
As for those who did receive the year-end supplement, their average guaranteed bonus in 2016 beyond their 12-month salaries was approximately a healthy 1.45 months.Yet, even against the backdrop of a favourable increase in the number of job advertisements on JobStreet.com since December 2016, the overall market sentiment that job seekers have in 2017 is still pessimistic.
It is possible that such sentiment can be attributed to the lack of performance-based bonuses last year as well—more than one-third of the respondents did not receive any and 68.9 per cent of them believes that companies will likely put their expansion plans on hold.
Conceivably, to ensure that Singaporeans truly feel positive and secure about their current state of employment is to demonstrate it in the most straightforward way: by rewarding them with monetary incentives.
