Episode 11: Payroll in Singapore

Luisa Rollenhagen (00:07):  

Hello and welcome to another episode of Payroll Around the World! I’m your host Luisa Rollenhagen. 

This audio series is your in-depth guide to exploring the intricacies of global payroll. Each episode spotlights a specific country and features interviews with ADP experts on the ground, as well as locals who share their perspectives on work and pay in their homeland. 

After all, payroll can’t truly be global if it isn’t local as well. 

Today, we’re heading to Singapore. Known for its futuristic skyline, efficient digital infrastructure, and diverse cultural landscape, Singapore has established itself as a major financial and business hub in Southeast Asia. Its strategic location, business-friendly policies, and highly skilled workforce make it a top choice for multinational corporations looking to set up regional headquarters. 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (01:08): 

Singapore’s economy is a highly skilled workforce, and it has a business-friendly environment also, which attracts many multinational corporations as well as entrepreneurs worldwide. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (01:21):  

Singapore is also one of the most digitally advanced economies in the world, with automation and AI playing an increasing role in payroll and HR management. 

The country is well-known for its ethnic diversity as well, with people of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Eurasian backgrounds defining its social fabric. In addition to locals, expats from all over the world have been coming for decades to work. But while international talent has been a fixture in Singapore’s workforce, the government has been making efforts to prioritize local hires. 

Carmen (01:54): 

I think the general sense in the market right now is that companies do prefer to hire locals.  

Luisa Rollenhagen (02:01):  

Another feature of Singapore’s labor landscape is the presence of specific mandatory contributions and fees. While the country is certainly not up there with France or Germany in terms of social security contributions and labor regulations, there are certain laws that employers must be aware of when it comes to their workforce, especially if they’re foreign citizens: 

Yvonne Teo (02:22): 

So the Foreign Worker Levy is a fee that employers have to pay when they hire foreign workers, especially those on lower-skilled work passes, for example. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (02:32):  

Don’t worry, we’ll be diving into all of that in a minute. But first, I’d like to introduce our guests for this episode. You’ve gotten a little preview from our ADP Singapore experts Yvonne and Vidhya, as well as hearing from Carmen, an employee in the venture capital space in Singapore, whom we’ll properly introduce a bit later. 

Hello Yvonne and Vidhya, thank you for joining us today! Would you mind introducing yourselves to our listeners? 

Yvonne Teo (02:57): 

My name is Yvonne Teo, I work as the HR leader for ADP Asia Pacific, and I’m based in Singapore. 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (03:05): 

Hi everyone. My name is Vidhya Ramamoorthy. I’m the operations manager for Singapore payroll. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (03:12):  

I’m looking forward to learning more about payroll in Singapore today. I’d like to get us started by asking you to give me an overview of the country’s economic and business landscape.  

Yvonne Teo (03:22): 

So Singapore’s economy is actually one of the most dynamic and globally connected in the world. It is a small but mighty state, a mighty city-state, I would say. In 2024, Singapore’s GDP exceeded 520 billion US dollars with a per capita GDP of about 90,000. And this actually ranks among the highest in the world, and this actually reflects its wealth and the high standard of living. The country is actually also a global hub for businesses looking to expand in Asia. It has very strong governance, pro-business policies, and world-class infrastructure and this actually makes it a very prime location for foreign investments. 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (04:11): 

Singapore’s economy is a highly skilled workforce, and it has a business-friendly environment also, which attracts many multinational corporations as well as entrepreneurs worldwide. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (04:23):  

Singapore is also a very digitally advanced economy. How does this shape payroll and HR operations in the country? 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (04:31): 

Singapore’s government itself insists that many employers are on digitalization. So they are also encouraging many employers to go digital. Many contributions, they are making it online. So the benefits that an employer gets out of this are that it is very fast transactions we can do. There is a reduction of errors, we can say, and it helps in the timely submissions of payments. And many employers are also giving their employees self-service portals. So by using their self-service portals, employees can log into the platform to see their own payslips anytime, the tax forms, their payroll information, et cetera. 

Yvonne Teo (05:15): 

Yeah, I think in that sense, digital transformation has actually made payroll management more efficient and automated. So there’s a lot of AI-driven analytics and government-led initiatives. For example, I think to Vi’s point, we were talking about the Inland Revenue authority of Singapore, which is, in short we call it the IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme. So that is actually an automated system where employers just upload the annual earnings, for example, of the workers and workers would just need to pay taxes that are calculated online by the authority. So it is very, very simple and highly digitalized. And because it is highly digitalized, there are also high expectations for compliance and data security. So from that front, I think Singapore has, it’s very strict also under the Personal Data Protection Act where it requires companies to ensure that payroll data is well protected. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (06:16):  

It sounds like many processes in Singapore are streamlined and fine-tuned for efficiency. Of course, this is also what attracts many businesses to Singapore. What are some challenges that multinational companies may not anticipate when coming here? 

Yvonne Teo (06:31): 

I would say the challenge really is the high cost of operating in Singapore. The cost of office space, for example, labor and just general operations. For example, power, electricity, all these are relatively high compared to the other Southeast Asian countries. And because it is such a, I would say a country where you have highly, that’s so well connected and there’s also highly skilled talent, as with all a lot of other developed countries, talent acquisition and retention becomes a big challenge for foreign companies, not just foreign companies but all companies. So that would be a challenge. I would say that the challenge for talent is very fierce, and Singapore’s unemployment rate has actually remained very low except for the sharp increase in 2021. During the pandemic, the unemployment rate has been between one and 3%, which essentially means full employment. So that’s how competitive it is from the talent front. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (07:34):  

And what’s a common mistake you’ve seen multinationals make when they first come to Singapore? 

Yvonne Teo (07:40): 

I would say maybe oversimplifying the business friendliness of the country. So it can be straightforward. For example, the corporate tax rate is actually a flat 17%. And I would also say that in terms of the payroll rules and compliance, it may not be as complex as in the other countries, but I think one common mistake is that, especially I think when companies start to take things for granted because although it’s simple, the rules change and then the landscape also change. So you really have to be on top of the changes and understand what’s coming and understand the overall operations landscape in Singapore. 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (08:24): 

Some of the common mistakes I would say is that they don’t have a local bank account open for their company. And we have also seen our clients not registering into the auto-inclusion scheme, which is very mandatory for the companies that have more than five employees. So it is very much useful because it is necessary when the company wants to declare the income of their employees to the government, and it should be submitted electronically. So these are some of the mistakes they generally make. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (08:59):  

So you both now mentioned the auto-inclusion scheme, which employers need to enroll in. I’d like to talk about other tax or benefits-related systems that employers need to be aware of. In my research, I came across the Central Provident Fund, or CPF, quite a bit. Could you tell me what that is? 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (09:18): 

It is a mandatory social security system, which is funded by the contributions of employees as well as employers. So CPF funds are generally used for retirement, housing and healthcare needs of the employees. So this is mainly dependent on three factors, I would say, based on the employee category, their age, as well as the total wages, what they earn. So in an organization, if you have an employee who is earning more than $50 per month, then as an employer, you are responsible to pay CPF for your employees. So we have separate tables for each category of employees, and the percentages differ accordingly. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (10:07):  

Right, I read that the contributions depend on the age of the employee. I also noticed that the contribution rates for both employers and employees decrease when employees are over 55 years of age. Why is that? 

Yvonne Teo (10:20): 

So typically the employees and the employers pay a higher rate for the younger workforce and making it actually more attractive and cheaper for employers to hire workers that are age 55 and above, for example. So the CPF rate actually reduces as the age goes up. So this is actually one difference in terms of the different contribution rates for the different age groups.  

Luisa Rollenhagen (10:51):  

I see. And Vidhya, you mentioned that there are different categories of employees. Can you explain that a bit more? 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (10:57): 

So the employees or categories are citizens, Singapore permanent residents, and expatriates, or the overseas employees. So CPF are generally paid for citizens and PRs. 

Yvonne Teo (11:12): 

I think to Vi’s point, where there’s a different rate for the Singapore PRs, and it is really a transition for the Singapore PRs to becoming a citizen, if you will. And in certain cases, even if they may not become a citizen, what the transition does is that the employer and employees start to contribute a lower percentage if you are just starting out to contribute to the social saving scheme. So by year three you should be at the same rate as what the other citizens are actually contributing. So it’s actually a transition to actually help employers and workers to be more used to having their income deducted towards this saving scheme in Singapore. But it’s only available for citizens and permanent residents.  

Luisa Rollenhagen (12:07):  

One thing that struck me as well was the existence of self-help group contributions, in which employers automatically deduct a small monthly contribution from employees’ salaries toward a self-help group that corresponds to the employee’s ethnicity. Could you explain it a bit more? 

Yvonne Teo (12:23): 

It may not sound very inclusive, but these are mandatory salary contributions to fund the different self-help groups. So their main focus is to uplift low-income households and the less privileged. So for example, they provide financial aid to the lower-income households. They also provide education support and skills training for the different communities. And of course Singapore is a, I would say, a multiracial country where it takes a community-driven approach to social support and it empowers the communities to actually take charge their own development. 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (13:07): 

So these are monthly contributions, and if an employee does not wish to contribute to these self-help groups or they may wish to do a fixed amount, then they can write it to the individual self-help group and get the exceptions. So for the employees, these self-help group contributions are mainly based on the race or religion of the employees. There are separate contribution tables for each of these self-help groups and it is based on the total wages of the employees. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (13:40):  

Right, there’s a fund for Chinese, Malay or Muslim, Indian, and Eurasian groups. And the contributions are mandatory? 

Yvonne Teo (13:47): 

But employees, they can opt out of this. So this is an opt-out scheme rather than opting in. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (13:54):  

I see.  

I’d like to go back to the different types of employees in Singapore. There is a very clear demarcation between expats, permanent residents, and citizens. I also came across S-Pass holders, which is a work permit that applies to mid-skilled foreign employees. Apparently, they’re subject to the Foreign Worker Levy. What can you tell me about this? 

Yvonne Teo (14:14): 

So the Foreign Worker Levy is a fee that employers have to pay when they hire foreign workers, especially those on lower-skilled work passes, for example. These are typically the work permits or the S passes, and the Foreign Worker Levy is not applicable for what we call the employment pass holders. And these are usually the higher-skilled workers and who are degree holders. So the main goal of the levy is to encourage employers to hire Singaporeans by making it more expensive to hire foreign workers. So this helps to maintain a balanced workforce in the country. Over time employers are encouraged to invest in local talent development and automation as well. 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (15:02): 

For every work permit holder or the S Pass holders the company hires, the employers are responsible for paying the Foreign Worker Levy, and it is only an employer contribution. The frequency is always monthly, and the employers have to pay these payments directly to the Ministry of Manpower Singapore. So why do they have these? This pricing mechanism is generally used to regulate the number of foreigners working in Singapore. So it is easy for the government to analyze this data and this levy depends upon various factors. Not that every employee you hire you have to pay this foreign worker. It depends upon certain factors, like if your sectors are manufacturing, construction, marine services, these industries, it is based on the levy tables that the employer has to pay the Foreign Worker Levy. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (15:57):  

Since we’re on the subject, I’d like to talk more about foreign workers in Singapore, and how the Singaporean government has updated its legislation to enforce stricter requirements for foreigners hoping to obtain or renew their work permits. The rationale behind this is to encourage the hiring of local talent. Could you delve into this a little bit? 

Yvonne Teo (16:17): 

So I think some of there may be some biases in hiring foreigners because they may view the foreign workers as having less flexibility in terms of looking for another employer because they need the pass to remain in Singapore. And for the Singapore workers they are, I would say that because they are Singapore citizens or permanent residents, they have the flexibility of moving from company to company. So in that sense, I think it actually takes less effort, if you will, from the employer’s end, from the retention front. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (16:53):  

That’s really interesting that you mention this. Remember Carmen, whom we heard from briefly at the beginning of the episode? She’s originally from Malaysia, but moved to Singapore for work and has since applied for Permanent Residency. As an Employment Pass holder, she felt that her options were more limited when it came to taking charge of her financial future. 

Before we dive into her story, just a quick note. You’ll hear her use some acronyms, including KL, which stands for Kuala Lumpur, where she used to live, and EP and PR, which stand for Employment Pass and Permanent Residency or Resident.  

Anyway, here’s what Carmen had to say about her experiences with the labor situation in Singapore. 

Carmen (17:37): 

Hi, I’m Carmen. I’m originally from Malaysia and I work in Singapore for the past seven years now. I’m an accountant in the VC space. I chose to work in Singapore because a friend of mine reached out to me about an opportunity here. So I’m originally from KL and I was an auditor there and I’ve worked there for about five years and I wanted a change and Singapore is close enough to home and it’s quite similar culture. So I was like, okay, why not give it a shot? And then I did get the job, so that was great. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (18:06):  

As someone working in the venture capital sector, Carmen was drawn to Singapore’s tech and finance-friendly business landscape. 

Carmen (18:13): 

I think Singapore is a very open kind of country where it allows a lot of these technology companies to grow and have their Asia version of the headquarters here because it’s an exciting space, relatively stable environment as well. And in terms of talent, I think because Singapore is such an international country, there’s a lot of interest in coming to relocate here or you get a lot of all this high potential individuals who are keen to advance their career. So it makes sense for them to come to Singapore to use that as a base. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (18:43):  

When she first arrived in Singapore, she applied for and received an Employment Pass to legally work in the country. Although she was aware of a general sentiment to keep a balanced locals-to-foreigner ratio when it came to employees, she wasn’t initially aware of any actual legislation. 

Carmen (19:00): 

There was an unwritten rule of a 50% foreigners to local hires ratio, which is not communicated for the EP. So we always had to observe that. But I think with the S Pass, they’ve made it a bit more clearer now what the ratio is. So I think that that one, you do need to obey to it. So I’ve only been aware of all these policies much later after I’ve joined the company. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (19:20):  

The minimum income requirements that Employment Pass and S Pass holders must meet in order to remain compliant have been raised by the government, thereby tightening the restrictions on foreign employees.  

Carmen (19:32): 

I think the general sense in the market right now is that companies do prefer to hire locals. And if they actually make it quite explicit in the job posting, they will say things like, oh, we are… only locals are preferred. We will not issue out passes. So I think there is a preference towards that. I think it makes sense from a government perspective to prioritize local hires because if the policy was too open to encourage a lot more foreigners, I think the local hires would suffer from that. But having said that, I think the local talent should also be a bit more competitive in terms of stepping up on what their ability to, I guess, contribute to the companies and whatnot. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (20:14):  

And remember what Yvonne said about EP holders not having a lot of flexibility when it came to changing employers?  

Carmen (20:21): 

I think I decided to apply for the PR because being on an employment path would mean that you’re tied to the company. So if you wanted to leave the company and apply to another company, the other company would then also need to apply for an employment pass for you. And I didn’t like that. I didn’t have ability to control that, I guess the ability to change job whenever I wanted to. So that was the decision that made me want to apply for PR because it meant that I had the flexibility to move between jobs. 

I think applying for it was what was quite smooth as far as I remember, but I did remember the questions being quite detailed. And some of the tips that my friends have given me is you have to demonstrate your contributions to the society and you sort of have to make it known in the application, which isn’t too hard because I do believe, and I am passionate about the work that I do, and I do care about the society and environment, so I tried to highlight that as well in my application. It did take a bit of a longer time, mostly because I applied at the moment that Covid hit. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (21:18):  

But it wasn’t just the job flexibility that Carmen cared about. In fact, that was more theoretical since she is very happy at her company. But she did want to access the social security benefits of the Central Provident Fund, which EP holders are not eligible for. 

Carmen (21:35): 

I feel really happy when I got my PR, but in terms of job security wise, I think it more or less stayed the same mostly because again, I’m quite happy in my job, so I didn’t really feel the need to be like, I need to get a PR so that I can change the job. So it wasn’t because of that. In fact, actually the reason why I wanted to get a PR is because I wanted to get my CPF. So obviously it’s important to me because it’s technically an additional income. So compared to a PR or Singaporean, the companies actually have to fork out more costs and that covers the pension portion. As a foreigner, you do not get that pension portion, so effectively you’re actually earning slightly lesser. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (22:11):  

I was curious to find out whether there was a trend of EP holders trying to make the leap to permanent residency in Singapore, so I went back to Yvonne and Vidhya to find out more.  

Yvonne Teo (22:20): 

I do see that a lot of employment pass holders applying for permanent residency in Singapore, I think that gives them a lot of flexibility when they’re looking at, for example, changing jobs. But I think essentially a lot of, I think it really depends on where they come from and for those of the employees who are looking at settling down permanently in Singapore, it could be, it is like the rite of passage if you will. You have to first become a Singapore PR before you become a Singapore citizen. So with that actually I’ve seen a few of our employees also looking at applying for permanent residency status. And of course, for them, it is more flexible once they relinquish the PR status; they are actually able to withdraw whatever that’s been saved in the CPF. Unlike citizens, where there are strict rules, so you’re not allowed to withdraw the amount until you reach certain milestones. And of course, certain minimum sums are actually achieved in the social insurance account before you are able to withdraw the money in cash. But for permanent residence, I guess there’s this flexibility where they’re able to withdraw the money once they relinquish the PR status. So why not apply for the PR status since the employer also has to contribute towards that savings account? 

Luisa Rollenhagen (23:52):  

Right, so if a permanent resident gives up their status and leaves Singapore, they can withdraw their full CPF balance. For citizens, they can’t really fully withdraw their CPF balance, even if they move overseas.  

Speaking of moving overseas, I read that there’s something called an IR21 tax clearance that employers must comply with if they have foreign employees who leave Singapore? 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (24:16): 

Whenever a foreign employee leaves Singapore for more than three months or they wanted to quit their job with the current employer, then it is an employer’s responsibility to declare their income to the government for tax clearance. So there is a form called IR21 where the employer needs to declare the income the employee has earned during the period and they have to submit it to IRAS online, and it should be submitted at least one month prior to the employee leaving the company. And in addition, the employer also needs to withhold all the money that is due for the employee. And once this IR21 form is submitted to the government, I think probably within seven working days, the employer will receive notice from IRAS either to release the excess amount, which has been held for tax clearance purposes or a tax clearance directive letter. So either of the way, the employer is being notified by IRAS, and it is always the employer’s responsibility to withhold the monies if they are not withholding it. And it is the employer’s responsibility to pay the taxes for the employees. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (25:35):  

I see. It seems that there are quite a few strategies that the Singaporean government is utilizing to balance foreign talent attraction with creating better opportunities for locals, ensuring a complementary relationship between the two groups.  

Are there any official guidelines that promote the prioritizing of local hires? 

Yvonne Teo (25:53): 

So the Fair Consideration Framework is actually a set of guidelines introduced by the Ministry of Manpower that requires employers to provide consideration for Singaporeans and PRs before hiring foreign talent. So it is actually to prevent unfair hiring practices, for example, favoritism, and to promote a strong local workforce.  

So there’s actually a process to the entire framework where employers would actually have to post a job opening in My Career’s Future for at least 14 days. And then all candidates would have to be assessed fairly based on their skills and experiences. And employers are also required to document hiring decisions to justify, especially when a local was not selected. So it’s actually an entire framework where the government is trying to promote fair hiring decisions and also to promote, I would say ensure that Singapore workers are given a fair chance in the unemployment. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (26:58):  

I just want to quickly clarify for listeners that My Career’s Future, which Yvonne just mentioned, is a government online jobs portal.  

Since the Singaporean government is placing a lot of emphasis on supporting local talent, I’m curious to learn more about the upskilling and training efforts that are being made to ensure the workforce’s ongoing competitiveness. The Skills Development Levy seems to be one of these measures. What can you tell me about it? 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (27:26): 

So the Skill Development Levy is a mandatory levy that every employer has to pay for their employees. So why these skill development levies are collected by the government is to support the employees in terms of trainings. And it is a monthly contribution, it is paid along with the CPF. So the levy is payable for each employee, and it is 0.25 percentage of the total wages. So the maximum contribution is always $11.25 and the minimum contribution is $2. 

Yvonne Teo (28:04): 

So there are a lot of programs that are available for both employees and employers. So, for example, there’s this skills future credit that is available to all Singaporeans and Singapore PRs, where they are free to use the credits provided by the government to sign up for classes which takes their interest. So they can, for example, take up even language classes or they can actually take pet grooming classes. So it’s up to them to really make use of the funds provided by the government for them to upskill themselves and from the employer’s front. So the funds are available mainly to, I would say, so there are certain criteria, if I’m not wrong, the companies have to be at least 30% owned by local, it’s locally owned instead of fully owned multinationals. 

If you are 30% owned locally, there are a lot of, for example, automation programs or consultancy, even consultancy support where there’s a lot of resources that are available for employers to make use of, for example, to improve their productivity, to improve their process. And that’s also salary funding for employers who actually redesign the employees’ work to make them more skillful, more productive in their work. So there are different programs available for, I would say, both Singaporean workers as well as employers. So this is essentially an important funding I would say in terms of making sure the workforce in Singapore continues to be upskilled. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (29:41):  

Yvonne, one of the things you said that struck me was that the CPF contributions were lower for older employees in an effort to promote the hiring of these age groups. I found that really interesting, because age discrimination is a very real thing in the workplace and in hiring practices, and Singapore is grappling with an aging population. According to Singapore’s Ministry of Health, around 1 in 4 Singaporeans will be aged 65 or above by 2030. What else is being done to integrate an older population into the workforce? 

Yvonne Teo (30:15): 

As the country is aging, the population is aging, the government is actually putting a lot of effort into ensuring the upskilling of older workers as well as providing incentives for employers to employ older workers. So you see a lot of incentives that are given to employers. It actually involves, for example, so the criteria will include, for example, the workers would have to be a Singaporean and they have to be of a certain age before they’re entitled to, for example, claiming some of the incentives that are provided by the companies.  

So recently, the government has just announced that they are providing an allowance for Singaporean workers who actually sign up for full-time education. So it’s a monthly allowance for a 12 month period if a worker were to actually go for a formal education. 

And for the employers there are actually different schemes. They don’t pay training fees directly to the employers. So what they do is that they have got what we call the senior employment credit. So this is actually a credit that provides some wage offset to help employers that employ Singaporean workers aged 60 and above. 

Employers receive up to 7% of the wages for Singaporean workers aged 60 and above, and who are earning less than $4,000 per month. I think most negotiations surround the base pay and bonus payments. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (31:50):  

I think that’s a really important thing to address, especially since more and more countries around the world are dealing with an aging population. Successfully integrating them into the workforce via upskilling and hiring incentives is a really great strategy to future-proof your employees. 

We’ve talked about many of the fees, contributions, and challenges that employers need to keep in mind when coming to Singapore. How is ADP helping multinationals adapt to the realities of doing business in the country? 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (32:19): 

So we have in-country legislative managers, so they closely keep monitoring Singapore websites, the press releases, publications, budget releases, and we update our clients in a timely manner. We are also hosting webinars on a monthly basis with our clients on important payroll-related topics and compliance changes. And there is also a newsletter being published to our clients on a monthly basis, again to tell them what are the upcoming changes they have in the compliance front. 

Yvonne Teo (32:53): 

As more people work remotely and flexibly, companies are also adjusting to how they pay their employees and offer benefits. So payroll systems are becoming more flexible with AI and also automation is also making things faster and easier. So all these add up, it means also high expectation from the employees. So many companies are shifting their focus to employee wellbeing, so offering more support like mental health programs and career growth opportunities. And of course also at the same time there’s also a bigger push for pay equity, making sure that people feel included and valued. So I think that’s where ADP can provide a lot of value where these processing can be taken out of the payroll department and the different companies where the employees in the companies can then focus on, for example, providing more value added services to their own company. For example, focusing on employees wellbeing as well as providing data analytics instead of processing monthly payroll. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (34:09):  

That’s a good point that we’re hearing quite a bit from different experts.  

We’ve reached the end of this episode, but before we part, I want to ask you one last question. What do you personally love about working in payroll in Singapore? 

Vidhya Ramamoorthy (34:23): 

Payroll is just not the numbers. We can learn a lot about payroll related terminologies. So when we process payroll for multiple clients, we can understand how their business are going on and how the labor market is actually us. And when we are dealing with multiple competencies, you will know, which are applicable for taxes, how the taxes are being computed, how the statutory things are being happening in different markets. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (34:54):  

Right, so that constant learning aspect. What about you, Yvonne? 

Yvonne Teo (34:59): 

I find that a lot of the business decisions, including the automation that the company is focusing on, is so relevant to what I have actually learned and experienced in my previous life. So I find that a lot of, I would say more similarities and also a lot of, it’s a lot of things where I can learn and I can contribute from the HR lens. How do I then contribute more from even the business perspective? My ideas about how do we look at employees engagement, for example, how do we look at employee development in a payroll industry, which it is actually very different from where I came from. So it’s, for me personally, it is a job that is combining both my experience, my interest, so that’s perfect for me. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (35:51):  

That’s lovely, thank you. 

Yvonne and Vidhya, thank you so much for joining us today and giving us a deeper insight into payroll in Singapore! It was really interesting to learn about the different government initiatives to ensure a fair balance between local and foreign hires, and I was particularly intrigued about official measures to promote the hiring and upskilling of older employees. 

I hope you got a bit of a deeper insight into how payroll in Singapore works today. If this episode has piqued your interest or your company is considering expanding into Singapore and you want to learn more about payroll there, please go to the ADP Singapore website sg.adp.com.  

And don’t forget to subscribe to learn more about payroll around the world with each new episode. 

You’ve been listening to ADP Payroll around the World.

Produced by ADP and Storythings