Hotel Miramar closing down, staff gets 52-month severance pay for working 52 years

Hotel Miramar will cease its operations at the end of October 2025 and its 108 employees will be laid off.

Its impending closure was announced at the end of August.

Of its 108 employees, three of them have worked at the hotel for more than 50 years, Lianhe Zaobao reported.

The hotel was first opened in 1971.

"I had hoped to work here till I was 75"

According to Zaobao, 69-year-old Chen Jin Feng had worked in the hotel's housekeeping department for 52 years.

Upon reaching retirement age, the hotel even offered her an extension of her contract.

"I had hoped to work here till I was 75, but things didn't turn out as expected," Chen said, feeling heartbroken about the hotel's closure.

Shocked at the generous severance pay

However, Chen revealed that she was greatly surprised by the generous severance pay given to her by the company, Zaobao reported.

Generally, the company's standard for their employees' severance pay is one month's salary for every year of service.

Chen said that as she was only a contract employee and not a full-time employee, the company was not obligated to follow the same severance standard.

However, they chose to treat her the same as a regular employee and gave her 52 months' worth of salary as severance.

Chen was deeply touched by the gesture.

She added that she had started working at the hotel when she was 17 and had stayed on with three generations of owners, all of whom treated their employees like family.

Treating employees like family helped retain them

Zaobao reported that of the current 108 employees, a quarter of them have been working at the hotel for more than a decade, while 12 per cent of them have been with the hotel for more than 20 years.

Even when the hotel industry was greatly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, Hotel Miramar did not lay off any of their employees or cut their salaries and remained committed to helping their employees keep their jobs.

Retrenchment packages

The hotel announced its closure in a joint statement with the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union (FDAWU) on Aug. 29.

Hotel Miramar workers are unionised, according to Zaobao.

Adhering to the collective agreement and union norms, retrenchment packages will be provided, and will also be extended to employees under the re-employment scheme.

Employees with fewer than two years of service will be provided with ex-gratia payment, while additional payouts will also be provided to recognise long-serving staff.

Workplace that feels like home

Wu Mei Ying, 65, who is a food and beverage supervisor at Hotel Miramar, told Zaobao that she started out as a part-timer in the hotel and has stayed with the company for 34 years.

She teared up several times during the interview, stating that though she had worked in other hotels before, none of them gave her the same feeling of warmth and care, and human connection that she found at Hotel Miramar.

"I was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago and had to undergo surgery," Wu revealed.

"My boss was very kind to me when he saw me, and I could feel his genuine care and concern for his employees."

Wu added that when the hotel closes in October, she does not plan to work in another hotel.

Instead, she may choose to work at a smaller cafe instead.

Difficult to find another company with the same workplace culture

Lin Wei Lie, who is the housekeeping supervisor at Hotel Miramar, has worked there for 24 years.

The 51-year-old told Zaobao that he feels that it will be difficult for him to find another hotel in Singapore that treats their employees like family.

"I originally thought that I would work at Hotel Miramar till I retired, I didn't expect there to be such a sudden change," he added.

Lin's Filipino colleague, 37-year-old Chio Aaron, who had worked at the hotel for 14 years, had also expected to work at the hotel till he retired.

He said: "I didn't expect the hotel to retire earlier than us."

Top photo via Lianhe Zaobao/ Hotel Miramar