Kakak has always been hearing stories of how people complain that Singapore does not have the minimum wage scheme. But Kakak don’t agree with the Minimum Wage Model because.. It just doesn’t make sense lah. Lao Niang explained it for you all before. If you forgot, read here.
So now the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) just announced that local rank-and-file shop workers are set to receive wage increases over three years under the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) for the retail sector.
Uols can look forward to 8.4 per cent to 8.5 per cent annual increments, starting from September 1 this year to Aug 31 2025!
For example, with these recommendations – retail assistants have to be paid at least $1,850 per month (excluding overtime) starting from September 1! The Tripartite Cluster for Retail Industry (TCR) come to this amount after thinking about the current median salaries for these kind of job lah (like your adik cashier to your abang abang assistant retail supervisor).
Breakdown is like this:
Yay. This means akak retail will be happier which means I can feel less guilty when going to her to ask to try on different shoe sizes.
About 46,000 full-time and part-time employees will benefit, out of which about 19,000 are lower-wage workers.
Wah our Abang Ng Chee Meng really keep to his word ah! Last week he just announced that the #EveryWorkerMatters Conversations, where he announced that the unions will continue to listen to the needs of workers.
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He also visited an IUIGA retail outlet to understand their retail operations. He said,
“NTUC has been championing our lower-wage workers … they can look forward to annual growth rates in their salaries of up to 8.5 per cent over the next three years.”
But this one is baseline pay, how about the retail allowances?
I always hear my friends trying to chase their sales target every month. Then they stressed you know.
Apart from just increasing salaries, PWM is more than that. According to the TCR, if the employees wages do not meet the minimum for the PWM criteria (because of their commissions etc), the employers also need to play a part lah. How?
This means the companies and bosses also need to think about how to redesign the job so that these workers can better meet their target lah. The TCR say suggest this to the companies and boss:
- Consider how to restructure the pay, like increase proportion covered by basic wage or allowances, or both
- Structured career progression and minimum requirements for training
- Workers also should take at least one Workforce Skills Qualifications training module for all job roles under PWM
So basically ah, this means that their jobs got more career progression you know? So those who say retail is a dead end job, don’t anyhow say ah.
But ah, if these workers increase their salaries, does this mean that we need to pay more?
Of course lah. You all always want to fight for the rights of workers, say what implement minimum wage lah what lah – but you all got to think of the company and what it means for the rest of the people living in Singapore or not? Never right.
Now also got manpower shortage in the retail sector. If they don’t do this, no one want to join this sector you know. Then how? You go to The Body Shop and self-checkout ah? I also don’t want!
So of course apart from workers, need to think about the employers also. With PWM, more workers are more motivated to work, got more people want to join this sector, means easier to hire. So win-win lah for all. To help the bosses get used to this, they are giving a 6-month “probation” like that lah for them (Sep 1 to Feb 28, 2023).
The TCR also already make it mandatory for companies to enforce the PWM lah. Also if these companies want to hire foreign talents, they need to comply with the Retail PWM requirement, and other applicable PWM and Local Qualifying Salary requirements.
Later in 2024, got one more review of the Retail PWM. You just stay tuned lah for Kakak’s updates.
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