Singapore’s Minister in the Prime Minister’s office Lim Boon Heng indicated that the country may need to raise its retirement age from 62 to 65 by 2012 and eventually to 68 to account as there is a higher life expectancy of its ageing population.
Due to the higher lifespan, individual would have to work longer in order to have enough saving for retirement so as to help relieve the burden on their children.
We all know that when there is an economic downturn, those elderly employees are always the one being retrenched. The reason being is that they are less educated and they are not as efficient as the younger ones. We often see elderly working in low paying jobs such as cleaner etc. These are the jobs that most Singaporean would shun away from.
Personally, I feel that the government should increase the percentage of each employer and employee have to contribute to its Central Provident Fund (CPF) when they are still working.
The government could encourage Singaporeans to make more smart investments rather than parking their savings in banks as the banks offer pathetic interest rate.
Having such savings and investments are better than rising the retirement age as by the age of 65 most of the elderly would have worked more than half of their lifetime. It is time for them to spend their time with their family and taking care of their own health and not worrying about the financial problems. Savings should be done at an early age.
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