how abt public services?

You dont even know what the discussion is about. Everybody know civil service more relax and work life balance. I was addressing the fact the civil service guy earlier make a statement if you are good performer, it doesnt matter as you will rise in both public & pte sector. This is patently false, the difference in pay between good performer in public & pte sector is huge.

Don't talk nonsense please. There is totally no difference between interest rates and loan terms for mortgaged houses between a teacher and a corporate employee. The location, condition and value of the house is the important collatoral, not one's job. I am presenting facts with numbers that show downpayments and monthly mortgages of a landed house are beyond a teacher's reach. You, on the other hand, offer nothing of substance except a totally baseless claim that banks love to offer morgages to teachers.

Can anyone tell me in this era, is it possible for a civil servant to retire comfortably at age 55 with enough to spend for the final days ahead? In the olden days, the pension scheme was very attractive. But today, it does not exist any more.

Many people have advised me on the downside of joining a niche govt job ---- non-transferable skills. If the current retirement plans offered by the govt are sufficient for a retired farmer to continue living without working and without comprising quality of life, I might think it's not too bad a deal....

It really depends on what sort of lifestyle you want. The government generally do not encourage civil servant to retire before 62 and now they are actively pushing for people to retire at 65.

There is no retirement plan to speak of other than CPF and the annuity options they have are all pretty crappy and it would be a struggle if you depend on that. If you want to retire like middle income lifestyle, you will need roughly $5,000 monthly ($60,000 p.a.) to draw down on. Assume you live until 80 then it would mean $60,000 x (80-55) = $1.5M. I do not think most farmer civil servant have $1.5M worth of retirement nest at 55 yrs old.

Of course there is general inflation so the real number 30 years down the road should be $3-4M, but I suppose your wages will also go up as well....

Anyone knows the difference between the rankings of 'MX' (e.g MX11, MX 10 etc) and that of 'Grade' (e.g Grade 8 for CPIO and Grade 13 for CAO) ? Are all these the rank structure of civilian positions?

different places call it differently..so pay also different, cannot compare the two directly. Progress, starting pay, ranking also different.

Are u a male with NS, cos 4k starting seems to be on the high side for civil service