Employers get more support, $30m grant to boost hiring of persons with disabilities

Through the task force, Chua heard of parents’ hopes for their children with disabilities to find suitable employment after they leave school. Employers also had questions, such as how to prepare their teams for hiring PWDs, he added.

Some of the task force’s initiatives include a new Employment Support Office run by SG Enable, which will help both PWDs and employers navigate employment matters.

The S-EEG was previously named the Supported-Enterprise Enabling Grant in the task force’s report. It is part of the new Enabling Employment Grant (EEG), which merges three existing schemes to simplify processes and is set to be launched in the first half of 2027.

Employers can use the EEG to fund efforts towards building inclusive workplaces, such as customising in-house training for PWDs.

Temporary wage offsets to go up

Changes are also in store for the EEC. The scheme provides a permanent wage offset of up to 20%, capped at $400 per month per employee with disabilities. Its qualifying income ceiling will be raised from $4,000 to $5,000, so more employees can qualify.

A temporary wage offset – for PWDs who had not been working for at least six months before being hired – will be increased from 20% to 30%, with the cap raised from $400 to $600 per month. It will also be extended from nine to 12 months.

These changes will take effect from January 2027, said a Ministry of Manpower spokesperson.

The EEC payouts will also be made quarterly instead of half-yearly, with the first quarterly payout scheduled for December 2027 for wages paid from July to September 2027.

Engines manufacturer Cummins Asia Pacific hopes the new grant will fund transport arrangements, such as the taxi it is currently paying for to ferry an employee who uses a wheelchair to and from its Tuas facility. The company’s inclusion and culture leader in the Asia-Pacific region, Joyce Chen, said it had tried to apply for the Open Door Programme Job Redesign Grant but was told that its scope did not cover transport.

“If you could put yourself in the shoes of a heavy equipment distributor, manufacturer in the west (of Singapore), more then can be done to support (hiring). And it will invite many others on the journey,” said Chen.

Cummins Asia Pacific employs 13 PWDs, including persons with autism and physical disabilities, in roles such as service advisers and document controllers. The EEC reduces the company’s costs.

Chen said the updated EEC would encourage inclusive hiring but noted that change needs to go beyond financial incentives to raising greater awareness of inclusion – especially in a challenging economy where employers are slowing down recruitment.

Record number recognised for inclusive hiring

On Nov 10, 193 recipients were recognised at the Enabling Mark Awards 2026. This was the highest number since the awards were launched in 2021 to recognise organisations and individuals championing disability-inclusive employment.

SG Enable said 86 of them were first-time recipients. There was a surge in the number of recipients in the food and beverage sector.

The number of organisations now accredited with the Enabling Mark – the national accreditation framework that benchmarks organisations on their efforts and achievements in building inclusive workplaces for PWDs – has risen to 283, up from 88 in 2021.

Crunchy Teeth, a social enterprise bakery which trains and employs youth with autism, was among the businesses to receive its first Enabling Mark accreditation on Nov 10. For co-founder Nancy Foo, the Enabling Mark (Gold) Award represents validation of the bakery’s efforts. Naysayers had doubted whether people with autism could work, but here they were after eight years of focus and perseverance, said Foo.

The bakery has trained more than 20 autistic youth in baking, packing cookies and manning stalls in malls. Co-founder Tan Yen Peng said it took time to set up a structured work system with visual cues and manage interactions between neurodivergent youth.

The bakery created a safe, non-judgmental space by assessing the youth “according to their capabilities and their ability to learn, not by their behaviour”, said Tan.

Moments of joy keep them going, such as when the father of a non-verbal intern in his 30s was elated to see his son preparing cookie dough independently, or when the intern laughed for the first time in years of working.

They hope for more financial support so they can reach more youth through their operations. “There’s so much in them that we have not explored,” said Tan.