SINGAPORE — Civil servants will be paid a year-end bonus amounting to half their monthly salary, with lower-wage officers getting at least S$900, the Public Service Division (PSD) announced on Friday (Nov 25).

This is lower than the 2015 and 2014 year-end Annual Variable Component (AVC) of 0.65 month and 0.8 month, respectively. Together with the mid-year AVC of 0.45 month, civil servants will get a full-year AVC of 0.95 month this year — lower than last year’s 1.15 months, with a minimum year-end payment of S$1,100.

“The lower AVC is in line with the lower economic growth for 2016 compared with 2015. The year-end AVC payment (including the minimum payment) was decided in consultation with the public sector unions,” said the PSD. 

All civil servants will also get the 13th-month payment — called the Non-Pensionable Annual Allowance — equal to one month’s salary, to be paid in December together with the AVC.

About 1,900 lower-wage civil servants will get the minimum AVC payment of S$900, mainly those on the Officer Support Scheme (OSS) doing administrative work. The PSD said in June that such officers in the Grade IV level earned between S$1,466 and S$1,863, while those in Grade V earned between S$1,230 and S$1,561.

An officer earning a monthly salary of S$1,500, for instance, will get a year-end AVC of S$900 — S$150 more than what he would get at 0.5 month of his monthly salary.

The PSD noted that the Singapore economy grew by 1.1 per cent on a year-on-year basis in the third quarter this year, a slower pace than the 2 per cent growth in the second quarter. In the first three quarters of this year, the Singapore economy grew at 1.7 per cent, slower than 2.1 per cent over the same period last year.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry on Thursday cut the top end of its full-year growth forecast for this year by half a percentage point to between 1 and 1.5 per cent, on the back of a contraction in the third quarter. 

Ms Cham Hui Fong, assistant secretary-general, National Trades Union Congress, said: “While the total payout package of 0.95 month AVC for 2016 is relatively lower than recent years, NTUC and our public sector unions are supportive of the lower quantum, given the current economic climate.”

She added that the payout package “fairly reflects the Government’s financial prudence while taking into account the recommendations by the National Wages Council”.

Mr G Muthukumarasamy, general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Public Daily Rated Workers, said the bonus and the non-pensionable annual allowance of one month “is a timely sum to help our members cope with year-end expenditures such as children’s education and back-to-school spending”.

Mr Yeo Chun Fing, general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Public Employees, said the union understands that rewards have to be moderated, given the slower growth of the economy. “We look forward to better rewards when the economy recovers,” he said.