Calculating Child Care, Shared Parental, and Adoption Leaves

An employee is entitled to six days of child care leave per year if he or she is covered under the Child Development Co-Savings Act. The act covers all parents of Singapore citizens who meet all these conditions:

• Child is a citizen of Singapore who is under seven years of age.

• Parent must be working for the same employer for at least three consecutive calendar months.

  Or, for self-employment, parent must be working in the same business or profession for at least three consecutive calendar months and has lost income during the child care leave period.

The total child care leave entitlement for each parent, regardless of the number of children, is six days per year until the child has reached the age of seven.

Working mothers in Singapore are entitled to four weeks of Government-paid adoption leave to care for and bond with their adopted infants when they meet all the eligibility criteria. Adoption leave needs to be consumed prior to the child’s first birthday; employers can receive up to $10,000 reimbursement for four weeks from the Government.

The system delivers these elements to support adoption leave:

• Absence entitlement ADOP LVE ENT.

  Formulae ADLV FM ENT CALC and ADLV FM RESOLV ENT are referenced in absence entitlement ADOP LVE ENT.

• Absence take ADOP LVE TAKE.

  Formula ADOP FM LVE TAKE is referenced in absence take ADOP LVE TAKE as the day formula element.

Under the shared parental leave legislation, a working mother can transfer one week of her 16 weeks of Government-paid maternity leave to her legally wedded husband. Global Payroll for Singapore delivers an absence take to reduce the mother’s maternity leave entitlement by one week. When the transfer of maternity leave to the child’s father needs to be recorded in the system, the take element SPL TRANSFER TAKE is used to take away one week’s time from the mother’s maternity leave entitlement.

To reduce the maternity leave entitlement by one week due to the shared parental leave, the take element SPL TRANSFER TAKE has to be entered for a period of 7 days starting from the commencement date of the maternity leave. This entry can also be made retroactively, if the mother has transferred one week of her maternity leave entitlement to her spouse after the commencement of her maternity leave.

According to the legislation, employers do not need not pay employees (who are on paternity or shared parental leave wages) beyond the number of days for which they are legally responsible. If employers choose to do so, they should be aware that the Government does not reimburse employers wages exceeding the specified reimbursement capping amount.

Several variables are used to determine how excess wages are handled for paternity and shared parental leaves.

These variables when set to ‘Y’ will lead to computation of the excess wages during the Paternity/Shared parental leave periods, which can be recovered from the employees.

• The variable PAT VR RECOVERY must be set to ‘Y’ if the employer does not wish to pay wages for the paternity leave period beyond the Government-specified reimbursement capping amount to employees. The variable can be overridden at multiple levels.

• The variable SPAT VR RECOVERY must be set to ‘Y’ if the employer does not wish to pay wages for the shared parental leave period beyond the Government-specified reimbursement capping amount to employees. The variable can be overridden at multiple levels.

• The variable PAT VR CAP AMT contains the Government-specified reimbursement capping amount for one week of paternity leave.

• The variable SPAT VR CAP AMT contains the Government-specified reimbursement capping amount for one week of shared parental leave.

When variable PAT VR RECOVERY or variable SPAT VR RECOVERY is set to Y, it kicks off excess wage calculation during the corresponding paternity or shared parental leave periods, which can be recovered from the employees.

See Also Variable Name Page

The dummy (not part of GROSS) earning PAT WKLY ERN indicates the weekly wage of employee during the paternity leave period. It is computed using this formula:

The dummy (not part of GROSS) earning PAT ERN CAP indicates the reimbursable/capped weekly wage of employee during the paternity leave period according to the Government-specified capping amount.

The deduction (part of GROSS) PAT LVE ADJ indicates the recovery being done from employee’s gross salary in case the employer does not wish to pay weekly wages above the Government-specified capping amount for the paternity leave period. The deduction PAT LVE ADJ is computed automatically whenever the variable PAT VR RECOVERY is set to ‘Y’ and the weekly earning is above the Government-specified reimbursable amount.

See Also Earnings Name Page

The dummy (not part of GROSS) earning SPL WKLY ERN indicates the weekly wage of employee during the shared parental leave period. It is computed using this formula:

The dummy (not part of GROSS) earning SPAT ERN CAP indicates the reimbursable/capped weekly wage of employee during the shared parental leave period according to the Government-specified capping amount.

The deduction (part of GROSS) SPAT LVE ADJ indicates the recovery being done from employee’s gross salary in case the employer does not wish to pay weekly wages above the Government-specified capping amount for the shared parental leave period. The deduction SPAT LVE ADJ is computed automatically whenever the variable SPAT VR RECOVERY is set to ‘Y’ and the weekly earning is above the Government-specified reimbursable amount.

See Also Earnings Name Page

The system delivers accumulator GPL GROSS for paternity and shared parental leaves, and you can configure this accumulator to reflect the earnings that are being paid regularly to employees. The elements used should not to be considered for computing the weekly salary during the leave period, for example, AWS (Annual Wage Supplement) needs to be excluded from this accumulator.

As delivered, deduction elements PAT LVE ADJ and SPAT LVE ADJ are added to the segment accumulator SGP GROSS as members. You can modify accumulator SGP GROSS to exclude these elements if you do not wish to cap the employee’s earnings during the paternity or shared parental leave period.

See Also Accumulator Name Page

If you wish to put a cap on the wages paid to employees during the paternity or shared parental leave periods at the Government-specified reimbursable limit, it is recommended that you reconfigure the payslip setup based on your business requirements, especially since two deduction elements PAT LVE ADJ and SPAT LVE ADJ are added to the GROSS accumulator.