Suntec S’pore Retrenching 85 Staff Due To Covid-19 After Trying Many Other Solutions

You would’ve thought that Suntec City should be doing well now since it’s Phase Two and people are coming out to eat and shop again.

But as Covid-19 has taught us, nothing is predictable.

And it was recently announced that Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre (Suntec Singapore) is retrenching 85 staff.

That’s almost half of their original workforce, which is 178 employees.

149 of them are locals while 29 are foreign talents.

They were made to do this because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Singapore’s meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) industry.

Retrenchment Exercise

Suntec Singapore’s retrenchment exercise was conducted after Suntec Singapore has reportedly exhausted all other avenues of cost-cutting.

They had gotten rid of non-essential spending, stopped hiring, redeployed their staff, cleared annual leave and have shorter workweeks for staff.

The management has also taken a pay cut of up to 40%.

This exercise will see them dropping 85 staff, 60 of them locals and non-locals, and extend across various functions including sales, operations, and support functions such as finance and HR.

This will leave Suntec with a reduced workforce of 89 local staff and 4 non-local staff.

It was added that the company had not wanted to let these staff go, and emphasised that it was not due to “performance”.

Retrenchment Package

The entire retrenchment exercise was done according to the process set down by NTUC Fair Retrenchment Framework and tripartite advisories.

Each affected staff will get a month’s salary for every year of service as severance pay.

Staff who are eligible can get also get a pro-rated Annual Wage Supplement for the year.

Remaining annual leave can also be cashed out.

For the notice period, affected staff can use the time to attend job fairs or interviews to look for other employment.

An affected worker, who works as an audio and visual technician with Suntec for seven years, said they saw the signs coming for “a few months now”. However, he added that he believes the “company is being fair to us workers”.

Local Staff Matched With At Least Two Jobs

It was similarly reported that NTUC Job Security Council (JSC) is on the ball and are looking to match affected staff with other suitable jobs.

Whether the jobs are suitable depends on the individual’s skills and experience.

So far, every affected local employee has been matched to at least two other job opportunities.

Suntec Singapore has also given BATU Building Construction And Timber Industries Employees’ Union $25,000 to help affected local employees develop or upgrade their skills for new employment.

Labour Chief Ng Chee Meng took to his Facebook page to emphasise that this retrenchment exercise by Suntec is a fair one.

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Better to know them and not need them than the other way around.