SINGAPORE: If you thought S$4,000 a month was reserved for degree-holding desk jockeys stuck in 9-to-6 limbo with weekly KPI meetings and lukewarm pantry coffee… think again.
A job ad from Malaysia on the Indeed portal recently made waves online after listing a full-time “cleaning specialist” role in Singapore—with a jaw-dropping salary of up to S$4,000 per month to clean toilets. Cue the Reddit keyboard warriors and local office drones collectively gasping in disbelief.
Later discussed on r/Singapore, the ad offered RM10,500 to RM13,000 monthly (that’s roughly S$3,200 to S$4,000), requiring Malaysians to work six days a week, eight to 12 hours a day. Overtime pays at 1.5x and, surprisingly, a bachelor’s degree is required.
“Plenty of Singaporeans would quit their 9-to-6 office job, which pays less than S$4K for this,” wrote one Redditor excitedly.
💸 A ‘heaven-sent’ deal? Really?
Malaysians on the r/Bolehland subreddit were understandably stunned. “Heaven-sent,” one called it. Others were suspicious, calling it an S Pass bait-and-switch. After all, Malaysia’s minimum wage sits at RM1,700 (S$488), and the offer is nearly 8 times that.
Back in Singapore, some locals weren’t so quick to jump on the cleaning bandwagon.
“Seems reasonable to me, though,” one Redditor calculated. “If it’s 24 days × 12 hours = 288 hours, that’s $13.9/hour. Factor in employer CPF (17%), and that’s just $11.9/hour.” Hardly glamorous—even if the toilet bowl is shiny.
Still, commenters dug deeper.
🚽 A toilet bowl incentive? Seriously?
One commenter reverse-engineered the “S$4K game”:
- Basic pay: S$1,000
- Regular OT (72 hrs): S$565.92
- Mop Cleaning Allowance: S$150
- Broom Cleaning Allowance: S$150
- Wear PPE Allowance: S$150
- Robot Cleaner Operator Allowance: S$300
- Shiny & Sparkling Toilet Bowl Incentive: S$150 (yes, really)
- Health Bonus, Transport, Meal, Pantry Incentives… the list goes on.
Total: S$3,931.28—rounded up to a nice S$4,000.
It’s not uncommon in cleaning contracts to inflate total pay with layered allowances instead of a high basic salary. But as another Redditor warned, this structure affects 13th-month bonuses, retrenchment benefits, and CPF.
🎓 But then… why the need for a Bachelor’s degree?
Many were baffled: “Why are they asking for a degree?”
Another Redditor offered a theory: “Could be to ensure decent English proficiency. Malaysian degrees are typically taught in English, unlike primary and secondary education.”
Others speculated the cleaner must operate high-tech cleaning machinery, requiring “basic technical knowledge”. Still, for a job usually associated with lower educational requirements, eyebrows were raised higher than a spotless urinal sensor.
🧼 A local shortage or S-Pass strategy?
With the mandated minimum salary for machine-operating cleaners at S$2,530 under the Progressive Wage Model and S Pass holders requiring S$3,300 minimum salary plus a levy of S$650, the maths gets murky.
“Mathematically, the company just needs to offer around $3,400 to a local to be equivalent,” one Singaporean pointed out. “Unless there are really no takers at this level? Something somehow doesn’t make sense.”
Another speculated: “They might be gunning for an E Pass instead. Locals don’t want to do it. Some companies even pay locals to just sit around to get quota.”
🧑💼 Office escape dreams?
While most Singaporeans wouldn’t jump into a toilet-cleaning gig lightly, one Reddit comment summed up the quiet quitting fantasy as mentioned earlier above:
“Where is the job? Plenty of Singaporeans would quit their 9-to-6 office job, which pays less than S$4K for this.”
Whether it’s S-Pass manoeuvring, machinery-based duties, or just creative HR math, one thing’s clear—this job ad flushed out a lot more than just toilet cleaners. It scrubbed down the layers of Singapore’s labour reality, revealing a job market where even scrubbing toilets might come with a degree requirement, a robot vacuum, and a better pay cheque than your average desk job.
M'sians shocked & enticed by S$4,000/month salary toilet-washing cleaner job in S'pore listed on M'sia job portal
byu/DrCalFun insingapore
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