Singapore judges to get 5-12% pay raise to keep up with the market and help attract talent

The Public Service Division (PSD) announced on Monday (Sep 12) that the salaries of Singapore’s judges and selected statutory appointment holders will increase by 5 to 12 per cent.

The pay raise will address gaps with market benchmarks, which have increased significantly, said PSD.

It has also been almost 15 years since the last salary adjustments for the administrative service and judicial and statutory appointment holders.

“These adjustments will enable the public service to continue to attract and retain its fair share of talent for key leadership roles,” said PSD.

The effective date for the salary adjustments is Oct 1, 2022, benefiting about 300 administrative officers and 30 judicial and statutory appointment holders.

The judicial appointment holders include the Chief Justice, Judges of the Court of Appeal, Judges of the Appellate Division, Judges of the High Court, and Judicial Commissioners, while the selected statutory appointment holders include the Attorney-General, Deputy Attorneys-General, Public Service Commission Chairman, and Auditor-General.

“As a progressive employer, beyond providing competitive salaries, the public service will continue to strengthen development efforts across all schemes of service,” noted PSD.

Administrative officers can continue to look forward to job rotations, attachments in the private and people sectors, as well as leadership milestone programmes.

“These efforts will enable our officers to give their best in service of Singapore and Singaporeans.”

PSD added it would continue to periodically review the salaries of public officers and adjust them when necessary to broadly keep pace with, but not lead, the market.

Members from the online community agreed it was time to review salaries; however, noted that low-income workers should also benefit from the adjustments.

“That’s why income inequality will always increase. Management easily increases the wages of their senior staff, but takes ages to argue about minimum wages and increasing the salaries of lowly paid workers, said Facebook user Zet Yeo.

“This also happens in corporates like bankers getting thousands in increment each year, but the poor tea lady wages stagnated for years.”

“MOM (Ministry of Manpower) should go around and find out for some, especially those low income such as cleaners,” added Facebook user Mohd Amok. “They don’t even know or heard about the PWM (Progressive Wage Model) as their employers or company chose not to brief or inform them…pls look into it asap.” /TISG

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