80% of employers in Singapore find recruitment to be a challenge as job vacancies continue to increase in 2024. With an aging population and as one of the global leaders in digital transformation, Singapore faces job search and hiring issues caused by changing business demands and talent and skills shortage. Such hiring problems require employers to find new and sustainable recruitment solutions that will help them attract and retain local talent amidst its shortage.
Hiring Issues In Singapore In 2025
As the unemployment rate among citizens increased to 3.1% in Q1 of 2024, job seekers are finding it increasingly difficult to land jobs in Singapore, with some fresh graduates feeling demoralised through the job application process. Below are the top issues driving these challenges in Singapore’s labour market in 2025.
Impact of Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is a global trend, and Singapore is no exception. Ranked 3rd in digital competitiveness globally and leading Asia’s digital revolution, Singapore is at the forefront of digital transformation, experiencing its impact on the labour market ahead of many other countries.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting the job market in Singapore, increasing the demand for specialised skills. Employers report that IT & Data skills, followed by engineering, sustainability, and environmental expertise, are the hardest to find in 2025. As the government aims to triple Singapore’s AI workforce in the next 3-5 years, hiring challenges will likely increase.
Aging Workforce
The median age of Singapore’s workforce increased from 37.4 years in 2010 to 41.5 years in 2020. With 32% of residents aged 65 and up still employed or looking for employment. This shift is particularly affecting industries requiring physical labour, such as manufacturing and construction.
With an aging population, sectors like healthcare and aged care will experience increased demand for services in the years ahead.
Evolving Business Demands
In 2023, companies created 47.3% more roles compared to 38.7% in 2022, indicating business expansion, particularly in information and communications, construction, and food and beverage services.
As a global business hub, Singapore attracts businesses of all sizes, drawing international talent that competes with the local workforce. At the same time, as a leader in digital transformation, the country is experiencing rapid changes in skills demand, which creates a skills mismatch between the talents available and the skills possessed by graduates.
Talent Shortage
According to a talent shortage survey by ManpowerGroup, companies worldwide, including those in Singapore, have faced increasing difficulty filling roles over the past 10 years, with only 10% reporting difficulty in 2014, compared to 79% in 2024. Finance and real estate industries are currently the most affected, followed by transportation, logistics, and automotive sectors.
This global talent shortage is a crisis, and by 2030, Singapore could lose out on billions in unrealised economic potential due to the shortage of skilled workers. Employers must adapt their hiring strategies to respond to the rapid changes in talent demand.
Coping With Hiring Challenges As An Employer In Singapore
The challenges faced by employers in 2024 are bound to worsen in the coming years. Without innovative solutions to help them survive the growing talent shortage, hiring issues can threaten their operations and competitiveness in a tight economy.
To help you navigate the hiring issues plaguing Singapore in 2025, below are long-term solutions that will help minimise your reliance on hard-to-source talent, as well as increase your attractiveness to job seekers to hire and retain more employees.
Upskill & Provide Career Growth
While outsourcing provides a short-term solution to Singapore’s hiring issues, companies would need to invest in Singapore’s local labour market for long term sustainability.
Upgrading and reskilling the existing workforce often serves as a key strategy for long-term success. This urges employers to upskill employees and provide opportunities for career growth to enhance their competitiveness in the employment market, which helps companies adapt to the talent and skills shortage brought about by Singapore’s rapid digital transformation and aging workforce.
Promote Flexible Work Arrangements
As Singapore’s workforce becomes increasingly aged, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung highlights the importance of promoting women’s participation to grow the country’s workforce and productivity, especially by improving flexibility in workplace arrangements.
Starting December of 2024, flexible work arrangements are going to be formalised in Singapore. For employers, this means allowing employees to request flexible work setups, evaluating requests properly, responding to requests in a timely manner, and communicating expectations on such arrangements. By doing so, employers can access a larger talent pool and retain valuable employees, helping them cope with an increasingly competitive labour market.
Redesign Jobs
To stay competitive, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) urges business owners to adopt creative hiring strategies. MOM advises, “Employers with hard-to-fill vacancies are encouraged to improve the attractiveness of their jobs so that they can tap on a larger talent pool to fill vacancies.”
The goal is to redesign jobs to attract and retain more talent for long-term sustainability. In particular, there are three groups to target – women, digital nomads, and the disengaged and disenfranchised.
As many as 240,000 women are looking to reenter the workforce, requiring non-traditional work arrangements. Meanwhile, digital nomads can bridge the skills shortage gap if employers provide support for remote work. Lastly, one in five employees in Singapore silently quits their jobs, but employers can reengage them to help mitigate the talent shortage in the labour market.
Automation
With an aging population and a low fertility rate, as well as a rapidly evolving digital landscape, Singapore is facing a talent shortage that requires employers to automate to overcome dependence on limited and hard-to-source talent.
Through automation, companies can enhance their efficiency in the long run, allowing them to streamline workflows, minimise need for human intervention, and focus their hiring needs on higher-skilled talents to help them survive the growing skills gap in the labour market.
Hiring issues are a challenge faced by employers in Singapore. But with support from reliable job match solutions like Bossjob, attracting talent through compelling job offers and accelerating time-to-hire through instant chats with bosses can help lessen the impact of Singapore’s talent and skills shortage.
Overcome your recruitment issues in HR by giving Bossjob a try – it’s free for employers to post jobs, get started in under 10 minutes and get your next hire on chat!
