Freelance social media manager Merlyn Tay began her career working from home.
She graduated from Singapore Polytechnic at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with a diploma in visual communications. Working from home provided her with flexibility, but it also meant far fewer check-ins than she had had during her pre-pandemic internships.
“My managers and my colleagues could not really see, at least not physically, how I worked,” Tay says. “They only saw my capabilities through my output.”
That early gap in guidance has stayed with her. Tay lost her previous role as a creative and public relations strategist after a restructuring exercise in May 2025, and has been job hunting since January.
Now 27, Tay is still looking for public relations and strategy roles, though she remains unsure about how to develop her career.
She is not alone in feeling this way. Despite Singapore having one of the lowest youth unemployment rates in the world – 6.6 per cent in 2025, according to data from the Ministry of Manpower – career concerns persist among young people across life stages.
Nearly half (49 per cent) of youth say they are stressed by future uncertainty, and 52 per cent worry that they may not keep up with the skills needed in a fast-changing economy.
The findings come from the National Youth Council’s (NYC) engagements with over 60,000 youth aged 15 to 35 between late-2024 and early-2026 to shape the SG Youth Plan.
Nearly half of youth surveyed as part of the National Youth Council’s engagements for the SG Youth Plan say they are stressed by future uncertainty.
PHOTO: BT
Unveiled in July, the SG Youth Plan is a five-year roadmap that aims to help young Singaporeans become more confident, connected, and contributing citizens.
Looking for guidance
One of the plan’s key moves is expanding both short- and long-form mentorship opportunities under Mentoring SG, a national initiative launched in 2022.
Mentoring SG aims to offer 20,000 mentoring opportunities a year, and grow its pool of mentors from more than 1,000 to 5,000 by 2030.
Tay welcomes the move. A lack of guidance, she says, has been one of the biggest challenges in her career so far.
Derrick Teo, a certified senior professional at the Institute for Human Resource Professionals, says that young people who entered the workforce amid the pandemic suffered a “subtle” loss: casual workplace interactions.
“They still graduated and started jobs, but many missed the informal learning that happens simply from being around experienced colleagues, like watching how somebody manages a client,” he explains.
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