Starhub restructuring: Outplacement support, assistance hotline for impacted staff

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Upon starting to give notice to the 300 full-time and contract roles to be laid-off (primarily in non-customer facing functions) as a result of its ongoing restructuring exercise, Starhub has provided a statement on its outplacement support versus industry benchmarks.

Expecting to incur a one-off restructuring cost of approximately S$25 million, which includes funding to support outplacement, training and coaching, Starhub has said: "Our overall package is more generous versus market practice."

Per Ministry of Manpower's advisory, the prevailing norm is to pay a retrenchment benefit of between two weeks to one month salary per year of service, depending on the company’s financial position and the industry. In unionised companies where the amount of retrenchment benefit is stated in the collective agreement, the norm is one month’s salary for each year of service.

However, Starhub has disclosed no further details on the relief package, citing the need to protect the privacy of the impacted colleagues.

It has clarified that it is working with organisations such as the Singapore Industrial and Services Employees’ Union (SISEU) and NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) to identify suitable roles, organise job fairs, and set up a dedicated employee assistance hotline.

ALSO READ: Employers in Singapore must declare all retrenchments, effective 2017

"The workforce reduction exercise has impacted predominantly support functions," Starhub has said in its latest statement.

Besides workforce reduction, it is also implementing other rationalisation initiatives to realise resources and savings to fund growth opportunities - such as savings in procurement, leasing costs, spending in network and systems repairs and maintenance, and overall sales and distribution expenses.

The programme is expected to realise S$210 million in savings over a three-year period from 2019.

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