A Guide to Employment Rights of Interns in Singapore

As an employer, it is important to know your employment obligations in Singapore. These include fulfilling the rights of interns working for your company. This article will help you familiarize yourself with the employment rights of interns so that you don’t fall astray on labor regulations in the city-state.

Employment rights for interns in Singapore

As stated in the Employment Act, an employee is defined as “a person who has signed or is working under a contract of service with an employer. Therefore, as long as you employ an intern under a contract of service, the intern will be considered an employee.

However, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has clarified that students undergoing internships as part of their school requirements are not covered under the Employment Act. Thus, the employment rights of interns stated in this article do not apply to them.

Related article:

A Comprehensive Guide to Singapore Employment Act

Do interns get paid?

The Employment Act does not state the minimum amount required for an employer to pay their interns. However, you are encouraged to pay monthly allowances to defray the food and travel expenses incurred by your interns during the employment period.

There will be minimum allowance requirements if your company is applying for certain government grants. For example, if you wish to receive up to 70% government support for internship allowances under the Global Ready Talent Programme, you must offer interns a minimum monthly allowance (before funding) of $800 to ITE and polytechnic students and $1,000 to university students.

How often do interns get paid?

You may determine how often you want to pay your interns. However, the payment should be made at least once a month.

According to the Employment Act, the allowance must be made before the 7th day after the expiry of the allowance period. For example, if the last day of the allowance period is April 30, the payment must be made before May 7. 

For overtime payment, it must be paid within 14 days after the expiry of the allowance period in which the overtime work is performed. For instance, if the last day of the allowance period is June 30, the payment must be made before July 14. 

In addition, you must pay pro-rated allowances if the intern has not completed a whole month of service because:

• They commenced employment after the first day of the month;
• Your intern’s contract was terminated before the end of the month;
• Your intern took unpaid leave for one day or more; or
• Your intern took leave to perform their national service obligations.

The formula to calculate pro-rated payment is:

(Monthly gross rate of pay x Number of days the employee worked in that month)

(Number of days the employee is required to work in that month).

For example, if your intern’s monthly payment is $1000 and they are required to work 20 days a month, but your intern works for only 10 days, then the pro-rated allowance would be $500. Any day the intern worked for 5 hours or less shall be regarded as a half-day for this calculation.

If the intern terminates their contract with prior notice, the total amount of the allowance shall be paid to them on the day of contract termination. If the intern does not give you prior notice, you can pay the salary before the expiration of the 7th day after the day of termination of their contract.

The required notice period is usually stated in terms of the employment contract. But if there is no such provision, the notice period for termination should be given as follows:

Interns CPF contributions

In general, CPF contributions are mandatory for all local employees, including interns, to enable Singaporeans to start building their retirement savings early. However, MOM exempts employers from making CPF contributions for interns if:

• your interns are students from public universities;
• enrolled in an institution or program subsidized by the Ministry of Education (MOE); or
• employed for training approved by their educational institution.

Paid sick and annual leave for interns

Your interns are entitled to paid annual leave on a pro-rated basis if they have worked for at least 3 months. Since internships are short-term and may not pass a year, the annual leave of interns is calculated in proportion to the number of completed months of service in that year.

In this calculation, any fraction of a day that is less than one and a half days is ignored, while any fraction of a day that is more than one and a half days will be treated as a full day.

For instance, unless the employment contract provides a more generous annual leave entitlement, an intern who signs a contract for 6 months will be entitled to 4 days of paid annual leave. However, if the intern is absent without the employer’s permission or reasonable excuse for more than 20% of the working days, they forfeit their entitlement to annual leave.

Your interns are also entitled to sick leave as follows:

Hours of work 

In general, an intern should not be required to work more than 6 consecutive hours without taking a break. They should also not be required to work more than 8 hours a day or more than 44 hours a week.

Furthermore, if the intern is involved in continuous work, such as the security industry, the intern may be required to work for 8 consecutive hours, including a 45-minute meal break.

While employers and employees have flexibility in the number of hours and days worked per week, no intern may be required to work more than 44 hours in a week or more than 88 hours in a continuous 2 week period.

If the employer requests interns work for a longer time than permitted above, the employer must give them overtime pay at a rate of not less than 1.5 times the basic hourly wage.

Rest day entitlement

Interns are allowed at least one rest day each week. This can be Sunday or any other day as determined from time to time by the employer. If rest days are determined by the employer, the employer must prepare a list of names before the start of each month so that interns are notified of the rest days specified for the month.

For interns working in shifts, the employer may consider a 30-hour continuous period a day of rest, provided this continuous 30-hour period begins any time before 6 pm on a Sunday.

Consequences of breaching interns’ employment rights

If you fail to pay allowances or violate your other interns’ rights mentioned above, you will be found guilty of violating the Employment Act. Once found guilty, you will be fined up to $5,000. For repeated offenses, you may be subject to a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment for a term of up to 12 months or both.

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