Employment in Singapore grows by 88,400 in 2023

Rise largely driven by foreigner employment growth; resident employment rate stays high

- Cheow Sue-Ann

Singapore’s total employment grew by 88,400 in 2023, largely driven by employment growth among foreigners. The increases came mainly in construction and manufacturing for foreigners, and in financial services and professional services for residents.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) noted in a labour market report for the fourth quarter of 2023, released on March 14, that the growth came as the employment rate for residents – Singaporeans and permanent residents – remains high, while the resident unemployment rate remains low at 2.8 per cent.

It also confirmed a January preliminary report that retrenchments in 2023 more than doubled from the previous year, with the figure finalised a tad higher at 14,590.

DBS Bank economist Chua Han Teng noted that while overall employment growth, excluding migrant domestic workers, expanded for the ninth straight quarter by about 7,500 in the last three months of 2023, this was the slowest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2021.

Associate Professor Walter Theseira, a labour economist from the Singapore University of Social Sciences, put the recent numbers down to the labour market coming off the post-pandemic boom.

“There was a very tight labour market immediately after the transition to a post-Covid framework as everything opened up, which meant your retrenchments and unemployment were low,” he said.

“But the post-Covid economy also transitioned globally into a general restructuring as many firms, especially in the tech sector, realised that the business model they used for hiring during Covid didn’t make sense anymore.”