You will be able to explain how the Platform Workers Act changes CPF and injury cover for platform workers.
Hafiz drives private hire through a ride-hail app, and has done for five years. For most of that time, his earnings statement was simple: fares, the platform's commission, and what landed in his bank account. Then new lines started appearing on it. One said CPF. He had not signed any form, and he had not changed jobs. What had changed was the law.
The Platform Workers Act treats people who work through ride-hail, taxi and delivery platforms as a separate group in law. They are not employees, because they choose when and how much they work and are not managed like staff. They are not fully self-employed either, because the platform sets prices, assigns jobs and controls much of how the work is done.
Before the Act, platform workers were treated as self-employed. That meant the position from lesson 3.1: no employer CPF, and nobody building housing and retirement savings for them. The Act gives this group some of the protections employees have, while keeping the flexibility of the work. The Ministry of Manpower explains who counts as a platform worker and which platforms are covered.
The biggest change is CPF. Under the Act, platform operators contribute to CPF for the platform workers it covers, and the worker contributes a share too, deducted from their earnings. It works much like an employer and employee: two contributions, made through the platform, going into the worker's CPF accounts.
That new line on Hafiz's statement was his share being deducted. The platform's share does not come out of his earnings, so it appears in his CPF account but may not appear on his statement at all.
Three details decide what you will see.
First, the contribution rates are being phased in over several years. Both the platform's share and the worker's share started lower and rise step by step, so the figures you saw last year may not be this year's.
Second, coverage depends on your age. Younger platform workers are covered automatically, and older workers may be able to opt in. The rules on who is covered and how to opt in are on the CPF Board and MOM websites.
Third, if you also have income as a self-employed person outside the platform, that income still follows the rules in module 2. The CPF Board explains how your platform contributions and your self-employed MediSave duty fit together.
The Act goes beyond CPF. Platform workers it covers now have work injury compensation, which most self-employed people do not have. If Hafiz is injured while working, he can claim compensation in a similar way to an employee under the Work Injury Compensation Act, without having to prove the platform was at fault. Module 6 comes back to this, because it changes the cover map for platform workers.
The Act also lets platform workers be represented by platform work associations, which can negotiate with platform operators on behalf of the workers they represent. Details of how these associations work are on the MOM website.
A deduction you do not understand is worth checking, and the first place to look is your own earnings statement. Find the CPF line and the earnings it was worked out from. Then find the current rates for your age on the CPF Board website and see whether the two agree.
Here is how Hafiz did it, with figures made up for the example. His weekly statement showed net earnings of S$1,000 and a CPF deduction of S$50. Suppose the CPF Board table showed a worker share of 5% for his age and that year. That rate is invented for the example, so look up the real one. S$1,000 multiplied by 5% is S$50, so the deduction matched.
If his statement had shown a different figure, his next step would be to check which earnings the rate applies to, since some statements show several earnings lines. If it still did not match, he would ask the platform, and then the CPF Board.
He also logged in to his CPF account to check that both shares had arrived. That part matters as much as the deduction. A deduction on a statement is only useful if the money reaches your account.
For a covered platform worker, CPF is no longer entirely a voluntary decision. Part of your housing and retirement savings now builds automatically, as it does for an employee. You still decide whether to add more, and lesson 3.4 still applies to you, but you start from a higher base than a freelancer with no platform work.
If you do platform work, your earnings statement is the document you need open for the activity. Find the most recent one, and have your CPF account open in another tab.
Find your own platform's CPF deductions on your earnings statement and check them against the current rates on the CPF Board website.
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