Singaporean workers are ending 2025 with the dull ache of feeling trapped in jobs that fall short of their expectations and suspecting that working harder would not pay off either.
Employers, on the other hand, believe they are rocking away on employee expectations.
This mismatch is among the findings and views gleaned from surveys and human resources specialists.
Employment portal Seek, which polled the views of 500 employees and 300 employers over two months from October, said the gap was surprising because employers reported raising pay and benefits to meet staff demands in an earlier study conducted in 2024.
Yet now, eight in 10 workers say their jobs underdeliver on the job pitch.
The firm’s latest survey found that disenchantment hits fast, with new joiners spotting the mismatch within their first three months — such as when their payslip fails to reflect actual responsibilities, their job scopes blur, or when the culture feels off.
Chook Yuh Yng, Seek’s director of Asia sales, said employees’ unhappiness with job pitches is making them question employers’ transparency, which, in turn, leads to greater mistrust and frustration.
On their end, nine in 10 managers said new hires change expectations shortly after joining. And they are not being disputed: Almost half of employees agree, with most citing mental health and well-being as the reason.
In 2025, Singapore workers also lag behind their peers across the Asia-Pacific in believing that doing a better job will lead to higher pay.
The observations made by global consultancy Mercer also showed that fewer workers here know what their company has lined up for their career advancement.
The twin findings, said Marieke van Raaij, Mercer’s regional employee engagement solutions leader, dampen workers’ enthusiasm for learning new skills such as artificial intelligence. “Employees that believe they’re fairly paid are 1.8 times as likely to spend more than 15 percent of their time learning new skills for work, compared with those who feel they are not fairly compensated.”
Already, Singapore workers are no more likely than their global peers to spend time on learning, despite the abundant training, she said.
