More than half of people responding to a local salary survey believe that $6,000 is the ideal monthly salary in Singapore given the cost of living in the nation-state.
According to JobStreet, which conducted the survey in April this year and released the results on Friday, the $6,000 is higher than Singapore’s average monthly wage of $4,998 last year.
It seems unsurprising, therefore, that some 83 per cent of the survey’s 622 respondents said they were dissatisfied with their current salaries.
Of the pool of respondents, 42 per cent said what they earn is only sufficient to cover their basic needs — things that include housing, food, transport, family (in terms of dependents like children and elderly parents) and utilities — while 31 per cent said they could afford some luxuries over and above their basic needs.
Just 4 per cent said they were very comfortable with their salaries, while 23 per cent said they were struggling to make ends meet.
Within the 23 per cent, 7 in 10 said they earned less than $3,000 a month.
When those dissatisfied with their salaries were asked how much their pay should increase by before they are satisfied, 66 per cent said they should see an increase of between 10 and 20 per cent.
Some 622 Singaporean workers across various industries in Singapore participated in the survey, which scoped employees’ sentiment about how much they earn, what they spend their money on and how much they save each month, given that Singapore was named the costliest city in the world for expatriates.
Check out the survey's findings at a glance here:
Read more about the survey's findings here.
