Working beyond the age of 65?

Singaporean Prime Minister said that the Singaporean government will be looking at amending the Retirement and Re-Employment Act so that people older than 65 can continue working. The particular move was being negotiated by the unions, employers and the government. However, he said that older workers should also be willing to change their expectation in terms of the pay. It is quite impossible for them to be receiving the same pay because by then, at 65, the workers are no longer as strong as previously. He pointed out that there are 800 civil servants who were rehired out of 800,000 today.

Personally, I do not hope that my parents would need to work beyond 65. In fact they have retired many years ago. Staying in a cosy semi-detached house fully paid for and shopping at Tesco’s every few days. My mum told me that their expenses these days do not go beyond RM1,000 per month except if we are home and she has to buy a lot more. Haha. The Proton Saga is fully paid for and their mobile phones were gifts from me. I am not sure if anyone would be thinking like me but if my parents said they needed to work because they needed more money, I think between my brother, my sister and myself, we would give them more money and tell them not to work.

Some friends working in Singapore tell me that working there is great because of the strong S$. I think it is true to a certain extent, especially if you are there for a short period of time, save as much as you can and do some effective investments in Malaysia. However, in my mind, if it is really that amazing, I am not sure why is there a need for Singaporeans to work beyond 65. I have a friend who told me that if he is healthy, he would continue to work beyond 65 and find nothing wrong with it. I told him, I would retire as early as I could and would retire from all the project deadlines, customer complaints, sales target pressure and more. I would love to just travel, with my loved ones and enjoy coffee anytime I think I want. It does not even need to be Starbucks, I am ok with Kopi-O on and off too. Yes, I would love to travel even beyond 65 years of age. As for working for a much lower pay once I reach my retirement age and being looked upon by others as ‘slow’ or ‘yesterday’, I shudder at the thought.

written on 16 May 2014

Next suggested article: Best place always; Retire in Ipoh.


Comments

  1. Hi
    Agreed with you, it is true that it is uneasy to continue to work beyond 65 years, i think that there must be a reason behind of having this policy in place. as sgp is an expensive country, the cost of living is getting higher, for instance, housing, inflation and so on. i think that it is getting very hard to keep up with the inflation with the ratio of annual increment from employeement, besides, the amount of the CFP is no longer cope with the same living standard if one stops retire in 55, in order to continue to subtain the cosy living standard after 55, the only option is to retire with fully loaded of cash OR pro long the working period until 65. so, it seems to be not much of option, honestly, i really hate to see those senior citizens are still working for a coffee shop as a cleaner, supposingly, they should deserve for the retirement and enjoy for the peaceful life. but they have to continue to work for the living.
    Personally, i am grateful as our cost of living in Malaysia is still not so high as of now, for instance, housing, however, it is matter of time and the same situation may or may not happen in Malaysia, once GST is implemented, we might be heading toward to this direction. i think it is kind of trade off for the growth of country GDP, anyhow, is it worthwhile or not, I leave it to you to think of. there is no right and wrong as always say.

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