During this year’s National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that retirement and re-employment ages will be raised to 65 by 2030.
For public officers such as those in ministries and statutory boards, the public service will raise the retirement and re-employment ages in 2021.
It will raise the retirement age to 63 and offer re-employment to eligible officers until they turn 68 from 1 July 2021.
Helping Workers To Remain Employable Longer
In line with this announcement, the public service will be rolling out more programmes starting next month to prepare its workers for longer careers.
The first of which is a programme that supports older officers in managing career transition, retirement, financial planning, health and relationships.
It will be launched by the Civil Service College in partnership with the Centre for Seniors, and is suitable for mature public officers.
The Civil Service College is also working with training partners to curate a curriculum that supports mature officers in their lifelong learning and employability.
This includes skills such as digital literacy, critical thinking, resilience and agility to learn continuously and adapt to change.
According to the Public Service Division, these are some of the efforts to help its officers remain employable.
The public service is one of the largest employers in Singapore, with about 145,000 officers.
More than 2,000 public officers turning 62 and 67 from 1 July 2021 to 31 June 2022 will stand to benefit from this move.
Our officers will have a longer span of career, potentially spanning a few decades.
The Public Service will actively invest in providing new skills to our officers, throughout their careers with us, so that they can continually grow as individuals across more than one job in the Public Service and be able to serve Singapore and Singaporeans well.
– Loh Khum Yean, permanent secretary of the Public Service Division and chairman of the Civil Service College
The college also offers e-learning modules on a public service digital learning platform and classroom training on topics such as cybersecurity, and communication and collaboration using digital tools.
Around 40,000 public officers, including more than 10,000 officers aged 50 and above, have participated in such digital literacy programmes as of this month.
Featured Image Credit: Our Tampines Hub
