FOR the second year in a row, OCBC will be giving out a one-off payment to its junior employees to help them cope with ongoing cost-of-living pressures.
About S$7.5 million will be distributed among close to 11,000 employees across the group and its subsidiaries including Bank of Singapore and OCBC Securities, or 40 per cent of OCBC’s overall headcount across 17 markets.
They will receive the payout from February to April 2025, said the bank in a statement on Monday (Dec 23).
In Singapore alone, some 4,000 junior employees or close to 40 per cent of staff based here will receive S$1,000 each.
These include new entrants to the workforce and unionsed employees, said OCBC, citing a higher forecast rate of core inflation for 2025 (2 per cent) compared with pre-pandemic years (1.1 per cent over 2015 to 2019).
Lee Hwee Boon, OCBC’s head of group human resources, said: “While inflation is forecast to moderate in 2025, we acknowledge that cost-of-living concerns persist.”
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She added: “The well-being of our people remains a top priority, so we hope that this one-off payment will ease concerns over the high living costs faced by our junior colleagues.”
The bank also observed that price levels also remain high in the city-state due to earlier increases in inflation.
The one-off support also factors in respective local market conditions for employees outside of Singapore, it added.
Lee said: “Beyond that, we are committed to providing upskilling and reskilling opportunities to ensure that our colleagues are equipped to meet the challenges of the future, while also empowering them to take charge of their own financial wellbeing.”
Earlier in February this year, OCBC paid out about S$9 million in one-off bonuses to 14,000 junior employees, of which 4,600 received about S$1,000 each.
This came as its rival lenders made similar moves, with DBS handing out S$15 million to more than 19,000 eligible employees in total, and UOB giving an extra month of bonus amounting to under S$10 million to about 6,000 staff.
At the time, the banks said their move was in line with recommendations from Singapore’s National Wages Council (NWC).
NWC’s guidelines for 2023/2024 stated that employers should consider giving a one-off special lump sum payment to employees – with heavier weightage for lower to middle-income employees – to help them offset the higher cost of living this year.