Employment 2025

SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Kelvin Tan, Benjamin Gaw and Lim Chong Kin, Drew & Napier LLC

5. New Work 5.1 Mobile Work

Social Security CPF contributions are payable if the employee is employed in Singapore but is required to go overseas for an assignment, such as an overseas business trip or training. 5.2 Sabbaticals A sabbatical leave is an extended period of leave tak - en for personal reasons such as for further studies, travelling or to rest. There is no statutory requirement for sabbatical leave in Singapore, and the offering of sabbatical leave is a matter of contractual agreement. Employers may allow for a sabbatical in the form of non-statutory leave, which is an additional provision to cater to an employee’s welfare. Employers may decide to offer fully paid, part-paid or unpaid sab - batical leave. Typically, sabbatical leave would be provided to employees who have had a long period of service. The duration of the leave would depend on the employer. Typically, an employee would be entitled to a period of two months to a year, continuing their employment upon their return from the sabbatical. An example is the National Council of Social Services’ (NCSS) Sabbatical Leave Scheme that allows applica - tion for up to ten weeks of paid leave for a sabbatical. The NCSS Sabbatical Leave Scheme is available to social workers, therapists (occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech therapists), psycholo - gists, counsellors and EIPIC (Early Intervention Pro - gramme for Infants and Children) teachers. 5.3 Other New Manifestations FWAs FWAs include working arrangements that differ from traditional arrangements of fixed daily work hours at the workplace. FWAs are usually offered by employ - ers to enable their employees to better manage work as well as family and personal responsibilities. Please also see 1.3 Working Hours . FWAs may come in the form of flexi-load, flexi-time or flexi-place. A few examples for each category are as follows.

Under the Workplace Safety and Health Act 2006 (WSHA), the “workplace” is defined in Section 5 (1) as any premises where a person is at work or is to work, where a person works for the time being, or customarily works, and includes a factory. With increased recognition of Flexible Work Arrange - ments (FWAs) (see 1.3 Working Hours ), organisations are more open to allowing their employees to do their work away from conventional offices. In a case study published by TAFEP, it was found that FWAs are key to hiring and retaining talent. As such, workplaces may possibly extend to locations outside the office. This would include mobile working where employees are often required to be on the move to carry out their job. Work Injury An employer is liable to pay compensation under the Work Injury Compensation Act 2019 (WICA) where the employee suffers from a work injury arising out of and in the course of their employment. Hence, based on the wording of the WICA, the place where the work injury was suffered does not appear to matter and employees engaged in mobile working would likely be covered under the WICA. In fact, Section 9 of the WICA provides that employ - ers are even held liable for accidents happening to employees outside Singapore if the employee is ordi - narily resident in Singapore and is employed by an employer in Singapore but is required to work outside Singapore. Data Privacy As mentioned in 3.1 Data Privacy Law and Employ- ment , the PDPA contains a transfer obligation. Hence, where employees are posted to an overseas office such as for an overseas assignment and personal data of that employee is transferred to the overseas office, the local office transferring that data must ensure that the overseas office provides a standard of protection to the personal data that is comparable to its protec - tion under the PDPA.

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