According to the Ministry of Manpower’s advanced release of their labour market report for Q4 2024, the labour market continued to expand overall. However, there are signs of moderation.
A full Labour Market Report Fourth Quarter 2024 will be released in mid-March 2025, and will provide more details, such as resident and non-resident employment breakdowns, sectoral data, number of job vacancies, labour turnover, and re-entry rates among retrenched residents.
Based on the advanced report, demand for Singapore workers in growth sectors remained strong, with employment increases in key sectors below:
- Professional Services
- Financial Services
- Health and Social Services
- Retail Trade
So what’s the job and wage outlook for 2025 for Singapore workers?
Employment growth is expected to be slower in 2025 due to global uncertainties and market volatility. But in the near term, there are signs of optimism, with more companies planning wage increases and hiring.
MOM’s forward-looking polls in December 2024 found that 32% of companies plan to raise wages, up from 16% in September 2024.
Notwithstanding increased uncertainty in the global economy, the positive hiring sentiment in the near term, combined with a tight labour market and the projected expansion of the Singapore economy in 2025, is likely to provide support to the labour market in the quarters ahead.
Additionally, the proportion of companies expecting to hire more workers increased from 43% to 46%.
With this positive shift in hiring sentiment, a tight labour market and the projected expansion of the Singapore economy in 2025, there is low risk of sharp retrenchment increases, and stable unemployment, says MOM.
However, in the long term, resident employment growth is likely to slow as our resident labour force participation rate is consistently high by international standards, and the remaining pool of available resident workers is limited.
At the same time, non-resident employment will continue to grow as economic agencies focus on attracting investments and global talent, which will strengthen Singapore’s role as a global hub and generate more quality job opportunities for Singaporeans.
So what’s the trick to staying competitive in the job market?
Many Singaporeans have been hearing the term career health with increasing frequency in recent times. In case you are still wondering what it is, MOM defines it as: “Charting long-term career pathways through career coaching and deepening one’s knowledge and skills with insights on growth jobs and industries.”
“With this, Singaporeans can take proactive steps to improve their career outcomes through training, on-the-job learning, and intentional career moves.”
“They can also make the best use of the wide array of Government upskilling and career conversion programmes.”
Find your next job on MyCareersFuture. We have over 100,000 job opportunities daily for you.
But why is career health so important, and why is it important now?
As Manpower Minister Tan See Leng previously said, “Just like physical health, career health has three aspects.
- Awareness: We must take regular health checks to know our health status and risks.
- Healthy habits: Information is only meaningful if we act on them. We know that to stay healthy, we must maintain good health habits. Similarly, we need to set longer-term career goals and take pre-emptive steps towards achieving them.
- Bouncing back from setbacks: Sometimes, things will not go our way. But if we have kept up our health, we can get back on our feet more quickly, with some help!”
He also shared more about a new feature available on Workforce Singapore’s MyCareersFuture portal, adding: “The Government has also recently rolled out CareersFinder. It is a beta feature on the MyCareersFuture portal where you can similarly obtain personalised jobs and skills insights.”
CareersFinder helps jobseekers discover personalised upskilling and career recommendations by analysing their profile.
Using data on skills adjacencies and job transitions in the labour market, Singapore workers and jobseekers can identify new career opportunities based on their profiles and recommend suitable training programmes to help them achieve their career goals.
Minister Tan concluded: “We hope that CareersFinder will be a starting point for your next steps to move up the career ladder – be it through taking a course to upskill, gaining more experiences in your present role or by making a career switch.”
