Budget 2021
On 16 February, the Minister for Finance unveiled the Government’s 2021 budget. Amongst other plans, the budget announced extensions to some of the key schemes that are supporting businesses and workers through the pandemic. Our blog post today is aimed at highlighting some of the key extensions that will help support your business.
Job Support Scheme
The Job Support Scheme (JSS) has been extended up to September 2021 for certain businesses. The Scheme provides wage support from the Government to help pay a percentage of local and permanent resident employees’ wages. If you’re operating in a tier 1, 2 or 3A sector, you can benefit from this extension. The relief percentage contributed by the Government will be tapered at different rates depending on the sector in which you operate.
For more information on the payments for the extended period and the JSS itself, visit this IRAS web page.
Wage Credit Scheme
The Wage Credit Scheme (WCS) has been extended to include the whole of 2021.
Providing the qualification criteria are met, the WCS provides support to you and your employees by co-funding 15% of the qualifying employees’ wages, up to the wage ceiling of $5 000 per month.
You can find out more about the WCS, qualification criteria and how to apply here.
Jobs Growth Incentive
The Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI) qualifying window has been extended by 7 months. This means that if you employ new local employees any time between now and 31 September 2021 the Government will provide you with the wage support shown in the table below:
| Employee Age | Government Contribution | Wage ceiling | Duration (from employment start date) |
| Less than 40 | 25% | $5 000 | 12 months |
| 40 and above | 50% | $6 000 | 18 months |
You can find more information on the JGI here.
If you want to read the full budget or explore the other announcements, you can do so on the Ministry of Finance’s Budget 2021 page.
We hope the above has proved useful to you. If you have any questions on how this relates to SimplePay, you can contact our team at support@simplepay.com.sg.
Equally, if you are not yet a client of SimplePay but would like to be, or if you’d like to know how we can take the effort out of filing and calculating payroll, get in contact with us or visit our website: www.simplepay.com.sg.
Keep well and stay safe.
Team SimplePay