PROTECTING WORKERS, NOT JOBS
Mr Ng assessed that Singapore’s job market remains robust.
Advance estimates recorded 57,300 jobs created in 2025 – more than the year before. While retrenchments inched up, this was mainly due to business restructuring, he noted.
“The job market, by statistics, seems reasonable. But on the ground, we do hear of different segments of workers feeling a little bit anxious,” he said, noting that growth in different sectors was uneven.
Singapore is in the initial phases of job disruption from generative AI, which is not currently causing widespread job displacements, said Mr Ng.
Instead, there are opportunities to use AI for job redesign and to improve productivity, including business outcomes and workers’ performance, he said.
He added that AI’s impact is not isolated, but layered on top of Industry 4.0 technologies and previous generations of technology, like robotic process automation, that augment businesses and workers’ productivity.
