THE National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) will raise the retirement and re-employment age ceilings for all its workers one-and-a-half years ahead of the national schedule, to benefit older employees.
From Jan 1, 2025, NTUC will raise the retirement age of its workers to 64 and the re-employment age to 69, it said in a statement on Monday (Dec 9).
Speaking on how the NTUC aims to give its older workers “meaningful employment opportunities”, NTUC secretary-general Ng Chee Meng said: “By raising the retirement age and re-employment age for our NTUC employees ahead of the national schedule, we are taking proactive steps to build a more inclusive workforce.”
The early raising of the retirement age will benefit around 448 workers who will be 63 years old as at Jan 1, 2025, while the early raising of the re-employment age will benefit around 271 workers who will turn 68 years old next year.
Some 2,356 workers above the statutory retirement age of 63 are currently employed by NTUC, NTUC Club, NTUC Enterprise and its businesses, which comprise FairPrice Group, Income Insurance, NTUC First Campus, NTUC Health and NTUC LearningHub.
The changes come ahead of the national schedule. Earlier in March, Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng said at the Committee of Supply 2024 that NTUC would raise retirement and re-employment age ceilings for its workers from Jul 1, 2026.
This is the second time that NTUC has pushed forward plans to raise the retirement and re-employment ages of its workers. In 2019, it announced that it would raise the retirement age of workers to 63 and the re-employment age to 68 from Jan 1, 2021, one-and-a-half years ahead of initial plans to raise the age ceilings from Jul 1, 2022.
NTUC strategy department manager Sarminah Tamsir, who has been with the organisation for 15 years, said that the raised age ceilings are a “progressive step forward” for older workers such as herself.
