Introduction
Singapore is navigating a rapidly ageing workforce, with citizens aged 65 and above projected to surpass 900,000 before the decade ends. To support longer careers, the statutory retirement age is now 64 and the re-employment age is 69, with the next milestones of 65 and 70 officially gazetted to take effect on 1 January 2029.
Under the Retirement and Re-employment Act (RRA), employers are legally prohibited from dismissing employees on the ground of age before the statutory retirement age, while qualifying older workers have the right to offer of re-employment up to age 69 if they meet performance and medical fitness criteria.
However, navigating these statutory boundaries in a tight labour market poses critical operational challenges:
Eligibility & Tenures: Can employers decline re-employment to senior hires with fewer than two years of service?
Contract Terms: Must employers maintain existing salary and benefits upon retirement at 64, or can terms be adjusted to reflect job worth and part-time hours without breaching Section 66A of the Employment Act?
Dispute Pathways: When does a refusal of re-employment trigger a 1-month notification to the Commissioner for Manpower, versus a 6-month claim for unreasonable terms at TADM?
Off-Ramping & EAP: What is the exact formula for Employment Assistance Payments (EAP)—including the prevailing $6,250 to $14,750 caps—and how do employers execute tripartite transfers to another company?
Gen AI Augmentation: How can HR leverage generative AI tools to audit employee eligibility, draft compliant 1-year renewable contracts, and craft dispute-proof policies in minutes while complying with PDPA standards?
This workshop equips HR leaders, business owners, and operations managers with practical legal mastery of the RRA. Beyond statutory compliance and recent ECT case law, participants will discover how to safely integrate Generative AI co-pilots to draft bulletproof re-employment documentation, manage sensitive older-worker conversations ethically, and future-proof their workforce strategy toward 2029.
Learning Objectives
- Introduction/Background on the new Retirement and Re-employment Act (RRA)
- An important definition of RRA
- Coverage of employees under RRA
- Termination before Retirement
- Criteria for Re-employment, Health and Work Performance
- Readjustment at the age of 60
- Re-employment upon retirement
- Exemptions on re-employment
- Power to issue tripartite guidelines
- Salient points on tripartite guidelines
- Are HR Policies part of an employment contract?
- Considerations to take when formulating the re-employment policies.
- Re-employment policies are the same for unionised and non-unionised companies?
Course Outline
A competent HR practitioner must have the skills and knowledge in the following:
1. Background and Purpose of Retirement and Re-employment Act
- Tripartite guidelines on Re-employment
- Objective of re-employment legislation
- Retirement Age Act versus Retirement and Re-employment Act
2. Category of employees covered under RRA
- Locals, SPR, Foreigners.
- RRA (Exemption Notification)
3. Eligibility criteria for Re-employment
- Definition of poor performance.
- Definition of medically fit.
- Employee’s fault.
4. Re-employment practices
- Identifying eligible employees
- Re-employment planning and consultation
- Job arrangement for re-employment
5. Re-employment contract/policies
- Difference between policies and terms and conditions of employment.
- The offer of re-employment.
- Duration of re-employment.
- Adjustment to wages, medical and other benefits.
- Variation of the employment contract.
- Drafting re-employment contract.
- Drafting re-employment policies and procedures.
- Drafting a retirement letter.
6. Dismissal of employees before retirement
- Dismissal with notice/without notice
- Grounds for dismissal
- Recent 2026 ECT Case Study: Understanding the legal liabilities of perfunctory or rushed re-employment exercises, immediate termination pitfalls and the mandatory 6-month pre-retirement consultation timeline.
7. Employment Assistant Programme
- Reference points for EAP
- Definition of gross salary
- Lacuna in EAP
Methodologies
Lecture and case study.
Who Should Attend
Human Resource Practitioners.
Workshop Registration
Please visit this page to register.
