Employment Act: who it covers

General coverage and exclusions

The Employment Act governs employees under a contract of service, including local and foreign, full-time, part-time, temporary and contract employees paid by hour, day, month or piece. Work below 35 hours a week falls under the part-time regulations. Seafarers, domestic workers and statutory-board employees/civil servants are excluded; their contracts and other applicable legislation govern them. Foreign work-pass employees also have protections and employer obligations under EFMA. The term-contract advisory is relevant to fixed-term staff.

Part 4 salary thresholds

Part 4 adds working-hours, overtime and rest-day protections. It covers workmen with monthly basic salary at most S$4,500, and covered non-workmen at most S$2,600. It excludes managers and executives. Basic salary excludes overtime, bonus, AWS, productivity incentives, special-expense reimbursement and every allowance.

Managers, executives and workmen

Manager/executive functions include hiring, discipline, termination, performance/reward decisions, policy formulation and business management. Tertiary-qualified specialists with comparable terms include lawyers, chartered accountants, doctors and dentists. Workmen mainly perform manual labour, including artisans/apprentices, passenger-vehicle operation or maintenance, and supervisors doing manual work over half their time. Statutory examples include cleaners, construction workers, labourers, machine operators/assemblers, metal or machinery workers, train/bus/lorry/van drivers, train/bus inspectors and piece-rate workers at employer premises. Seafarers and domestic workers remain excluded.