Clarification by Minister for Manpower
Ministry of ManpowerSpeakers
Summary
This clarification concerns a correction by Minister for Manpower Mrs Josephine Teo regarding her previous response about the Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI) and employer CPF contribution timelines. She corrected an earlier statement that suggested employers have two months to make CPF payments, clarifying that the actual deadline is two weeks after the end of the month. The Minister explained that the previously cited two-month period accounts for the time required by the CPF Board to validate data before handing it over to IRAS for processing. Consequently, for employees hired at the start of the JGI program in September 2020, the necessary data for incentive computation was only ready around the end of November 2020. This update provides an accurate account of the administrative validation process for the JGI scheme following a supplementary question by Mr Gerald Giam.
Transcript
1.36 pm
The Minister for Manpower (Mrs Josephine Teo): Mr Speaker, with your leave, may I make a clarification with respect to my response to Mr Gerald Giam’s supplementary question on 5 January 2021, during Question Time for the Parliamentary Question "Rationale for Support Threshold in Jobs Growth Incentive Scheme".
Mr Speaker: Please proceed.
Mrs Josephine Teo: Thank you, Sir. Mr Giam had asked about the take-up of the Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI) by companies. I had explained that we use CPF data to compute the JGI incentive in order to reduce the administrative burden for companies. I said that for every employer that has a local employee, for which he has CPF employer obligations, the employer is given two months in order to make the CPF payments. So, for someone who was employed, brought onboard at the start of the programme in September 2020, the employer actually has up till the end of November in order to make those payments. [Please refer to "Rationale for Support Threshold in Jobs Growth Incentive Scheme", Official Report, 5 January 2021, Vol 95, Issue No 15, Oral Answers to Questions section.]
I wish to make a correction to that last statement. For every employer that has a local employee, for which he has CPF employer obligations, the employer is given two weeks after the end of the month in order to make the CPF payments. However, the CPF Board must thereafter validate the data before handing it over to IRAS for further processing. So, for those who were employed, brought onboard at the start of the programme in September 2020, the data is only ready for use around the end of November. Thank you.
Mr Speaker: Order. Introduction of Government Bill. Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.