Five out of six jobs new jobs went to Singaporeans from 2015 to 2018

Singapore—Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing shared data on the proportion of jobs for Singaporeans and permanent residents (PR) from 2015 to 2018.

“Pre-selected” permanent residents took up 17 percent or 9,000 new jobs compared to the 83 percent or 50,000 jobs which went to Singaporean citizens.

Minister Chan said that the PRs are selected based on their specific skills while Singaporean workers have various age ranges and skill sets.

Thus, PR performance and employment growth is “slightly better” than Singaporeans in some employment sectors.

He added that Singapore will continue to see more foreigners in sectors like information and communication technology considering the shortage of workers with the right skill sets.

However, Singaporeans are projected to take over these jobs in the future considering the trend of more poly graduates getting better employment prospects than their seniors.

It was reported that unemployment levels among polytechnic graduates fell from 10.5 percent in 2018 to 9.3 percent in 2019. The median gross monthly salary for full-time permanent employment also increased from S$2,350 to S$2,400.

“You will see that many of our graduates go into these jobs. This means that progressively, our people are taking over these higher-paying and better jobs, even though today the local (to foreigner) ratio may be lower than three-to-one,” he said as quoted in a report by the Straits Times.

Minister Chan also said that Singaporeans can look forward to getting a large chunk off the 32,814 jobs to be created over the next three to five years due to the S$15.2 billion investment commitments in Singapore last 2019.-/TISG

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