Singapore – Civil servants may be put on unpaid leave if they choose to remain unvaccinated against Covid-19.
The Public Service Division (PSD) announced on Nov 4 that beginning Jan 1, 2022, PSD “will do its best” to allow unvaccinated officers to work from home if feasible.
Otherwise, they would be tasked to do other work that can be done from home, if available, with the corresponding remuneration “commensurate with the responsibilities of the alternative jobs,” a PSD representative said to Channel News Asia report on Thursday.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) had already announced on Oct 23 that only fully vaccinated employees, or those who had recovered from Covid-19 within the past 270 days (and had therefore acquired immunity), could return to the workplace.
“Unvaccinated employees will not be allowed to return to the workplace unless they have tested negative for COVID-19 before returning to the workplace, and they will need to pay for the costs of these tests,” said MOH.
The test should be a pre-event test at an MOH-approved Covid-19 test provider and valid for the duration that the employees are required to be at the workplace.
Negative antigen rapid test results are valid for only 24 hours.
MOH and the Manpower Ministry (MOM) said employers are “strongly encouraged” to give special consideration to staff who are pregnant or medically ineligible for the vaccines.
Those who are medically ineligible for the vaccines under the national vaccination programme, and Sinovac will be exempted from the vaccination requirement if required to work on site.
Working arrangements remain the employers’ prerogative, MOM emphasised.
“As the vast majority of vaccinated employees eventually return to the workplace more frequently, the prolonged absence of the unvaccinated employees from the workplace may affect their individual performance as well as negatively impact the team or organisational performance,” MOM said in a separate advisory.
It offers three options for employees whose work cannot be performed at home: They can have pre-event testing done at their own expense; be redeployed to jobs that can be done at home; or placed on a no-pay leave or terminated, as a last resort, in accordance with their employment contract.
About 153,000 Singapore public service officers work in 16 ministries and more than 50 statutory boards, according to PSD’s website.
“Workforce growth in 2020 was largely due to public agencies ramping up more short-term positions to support COVID-related operations during the pandemic,” it noted.
The PSD spokesperson emphasised that “If an officer chooses not to be vaccinated even though he is medically eligible for vaccination, and if he cannot be redeployed, we may place the person on no-pay leave as a last resort or allow the contract to lapse with no further renewal.”
With about 98 per cent of officers already fully vaccinated, PSD will “strongly encourage” the remaining 2 per cent, or about 3,000 officers, to get inoculated in order to protect themselves and others./TISG
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