SINGAPORE: A man recently took to social media to share that his previous company offered him a contract position at half his former salary after he was laid off.
In a post on r/askSingapore on Friday (Jul 5), he shared that he had worked as an executive assistant for someone in senior management at a US-based multinational tech company.
However, things changed when his boss left the company. Rather than hiring a replacement, the company decided to distribute the executive’s responsibilities among other leaders within the organization.
As a result, the HR informed him that his role was now redundant, as there were no available positions for an Executive Assistant.
“After I was retrenched while searching for job opportunities I chanced upon this Executive Asst role advertised by a recruiting company. It’s a contract job and the salary is half of what I am drawing in my last company,” he said.
Being desperate, he decided to apply, hoping it might lead to a stable opportunity. But to his surprise, the recruiter told him the job was actually for his former company.
“The recruiter asked me if I am ok to return to my ex-company to work on contract basis.”
Feeling upset that he was let go for being overpaid rather than due to a lack of available roles, he questioned if this situation could be classified as “unfair dismissal.”
“It’s definitely not an unfair dismissal.”
In the comments section, the Redditors argued that his termination wasn’t unfair because the company genuinely thought his role was unnecessary back then.
But after looking into it further, their management must have realized his job was still needed. So, they started hiring again and suddenly brought back his position.
They also speculated that the role might have fewer responsibilities now, and the company wanted the flexibility to either keep or cut the role, which led to it being turned into a contract job with half the pay.
Instead of reporting his company to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the Redditors suggested that the man focus all his time and energy on sending out resumes.
One netizen added, “According to labor law, both parties can terminate an employment by providing notice or notice in lieu. So no. Being overpaid is not a protected element from unfair termination.
A lot of tech companies are doing this as tech salaries were severely inflated during covid and there is a need to right size the salary structure.”
Another commented, “It’s definitely not an unfair dismissal. The only thing you can be upset about is that they didn’t ask you if you wanted to downgrade to contract basis at half the salary.
“And be honest with yourself, you would not have taken that deal. You would have been furious. It’s only now that you are desperate and haven’t managed to find anything else that you will consider it.”
Others suggested to the man that he should consider accepting the offer and aim to negotiate for 60-70% of his previous salary, rather than settling for the current offer. Should this negotiation not succeed, he can wait patiently, as there is a possibility that if the company hires another senior management member, he could be in a strong position to reclaim his original package.
One netizen said, “Just move on. Not worth your energy and time and mental health to fight the battle.”
Another commented, “Better to have income than none. Of course you can still job hunt elsewhere the whole time too.”
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