\n<\/p>\n
Going forward, the government will also pick up the full tab for employers\u2019 costs during statutory child-related leave schemes, up to its reimbursement limit.<\/p>\n
Currently, maternity leave, paternity leave and shared parental leave provisions add up to a total of about seven-and-a-half months of paid leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we go further? I won\u2019t rule it out,\u201d Mr Wong, who is also finance minister, told the audience at ITE College Central.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut these leave arrangements have just been introduced, and employers do need time to adapt. So we will let these changes settle in first.\u201d<\/p>\n
The enhancements to childcare leave and government reimbursement are among the first set of recommendations from the Marriage and Parenthood Reset Workgroup to be accepted by the government.<\/p>\n
The workgroup, chaired by Minister in the Prime Minister\u2019s Office Indranee Rajah, will release a fuller set of recommendations in early 2027.<\/p>\n
Many parents say that current childcare leave provisions are not enough because having more children means greater caregiving responsibilities, said Mr Wong.<\/p>\n
\u201cOlder children still need their parents \u2013 the needs are different, but they do not go away. So parents often end up using their own annual leave,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The higher baseline of eight days\u2019 leave ensures both parents have enough combined childcare leave to cover mandated preschool and primary school closures, with a buffer for unplanned sick days, said the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD).<\/p>\n
Legislative amendments are needed for these changes. The start date of the new leave entitlements will be announced later, NPTD and the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) said in a factsheet.<\/p>\n
They encouraged parents to discuss leave plans with employers early where possible, so that caregiving needs and business operations can be managed well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Going forward, the government will also pick up the full tab for employers\u2019 costs during statutory child-related leave schemes, up to its reimbursement limit. Currently,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--YGhIcqfA--\/c_crop,h_1125,w_2000,x_0,y_19\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/08\/23\/istock-2202621559.jpg?itok=PQnt0brs","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25334,578,727,28779,112],"class_list":["post-78993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-childcare","tag-days","tag-leave","tag-ndr","tag-parents","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}