Absentee Payroll Funding

All locally registered or incorporated organisations in Singapore are eligible for course fee and absentee payroll funding when you sponsor your Singapore Citizen and Permanent Resident employees for training courses funded by SSG.

Course Fee Funding

Baseline course fee funding are available to lower the cost when you sponsor your Singapore Citizen, Permanent Resident, and Long Term Visitor Pass Plus (LTVP+) employees for training courses funded by SSG.

Eligibility criteria:

  • Your organisation must be registered or incorporated in Singapore
  • Non-business entities not registered with ACRA, such as Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs) and societies are eligible
  • Sole proprietorships which meet all of the above criteria are also eligible

Enhanced Training Support for Small and Medium Enterprises (ETSS)

If your organisation is a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME), you will receive up to 90% course fee funding.

Eligibility criteria:

  • Your organisation must be registered or incorporated in Singapore
  • At least 30% of your organisation’s local shareholding must be held by Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents
  • Your organisation’s employment size must not exceed 200 (at group level), OR your organisation’s annual sales turnover (at group level) must not exceed S$100 million
  • Sole proprietorships which meet all of the above criteria are also eligible
  • Non-business entities not registered with ACRA, such as VWOs and societies are eligible

SkillsFuture Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy (MCES)

Recognising that mid-career individuals may face greater challenges in undertaking training, the MCES is provided for Singaporeans aged 40 years old and above to upskill and reskill. As an employer, you will be eligible for up to 90% course fee funding when you sponsor your mid-career Singaporean employees for SSG-funded certifiable courses.

Absentee Payroll (AP) Funding

AP funding is a grant to help you defray the manpower costs incurred when you send your employees for training courses funded by SSG. For training outside working hours, AP funding is given to you to defray the overtime pay that was paid to your employees.

To support organisations to send more workers for training and help their workforce emerge stronger post-COVID-19, the AP funding rate was enhanced to 80% of hourly basic salary, capped at $7.50 per hour. The enhanced AP funding rate will cease on 31 December 2021.

Eligibility criteria:

  • Your organisation must be registered or incorporated in Singapore
  • Non-business entities not registered with ACRA, such as VWOs and societies are eligible
  • Sole proprietorships which meet all of the above criteria are also eligible

To qualify for course fee and absentee payroll funding, your employees must meet the following criteria:

  • Must be Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents
  • Trainee is not a full-time national serviceman
  • Courses have to be fully paid for by the employer

How to apply:

  • There is no need to apply for course fee funding as it is automatically computed and deducted from the course fee
  • Please declare your employees’ hourly salary information here to claim for absentee payroll funding

Changes to SkillsFuture Course Fee and Absentee Payroll Funding

SSG continually reviews our schemes to ensure the effective use of funding resources and provides the best training outcomes for our local workforce. As part of the review, we would like to inform you that the following revisions will be implemented for all SSG-funded courses commencing on or after 1 January 2022, regardless of when enrolment takes place:

1. SkillsFuture Course Fee Funding

The revisions to course fee funding, applicable to all SSG-funded courses commencing on or after 1 Jan 2022, are as follows:

  • Baseline course fee subsides will be simplified and streamlined across Professional, Manager, Executive and Technician (PMET) and non-PMET courses, at up to 70% of course fees for courses offered by SSG-appointed CET Centres, and up to 50% of course fees for certifiable courses approved by SSG.
  • Enterprises that qualify for SSG’s enhanced subsidy schemes (SkillsFuture Mid-career Enhanced Subsidy and Enhanced Training Support for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)) will receive an enhanced subsidy of up to 20%-points above the baseline course fee subsidies. This means up to 90% course fee subsidies in total, inclusive of enhanced funding for courses with the strongest manpower outcomes.

2. Absentee Payroll Funding

With effect from 1 Jan 2022, SSG will introduce a fixed Absentee Payroll (AP) rate at $4.50 per hour. We will also set a $100,000 cap on the maximum AP funding each organisation can claim each calendar year to ensure that the benefits are more evenly distributed across companies.

The revisions are summarised below. Please refer to Annexes A and B under “Resources” for more details.

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