Skip to main content
About us

Labour Market Advance Release Fourth Quarter 2025

Overview

 

            Preliminary data indicate that Singapore’s labour market continued to expand in 4Q 2025 and the full year of 2025, alongside continued economic growth1. Total employment2 growth was stronger than in 2024, and unemployment and retrenchments remained low and stable.

 

Main Findings3

 

Total employment continued to grow

 

2              For the full year of 2025, total employment growth (57,300) was stronger than in 2024 (44,500). Resident4 employment growth was concentrated in Financial Services and Health & Social Services, while non-resident employment growth continued to be driven by Construction, largely comprising Work Permit Holders.

 

3              Total employment grew by 19,600 in 4Q 2025. While this was lower than the stronger-than-anticipated growth in 3Q 2025 (25,100), it remained higher than employment growth in the first half of 2025 (1Q 2025: 2,300; 2Q 2025: 10,400). Employment growth in 4Q 2025 was also higher than the corresponding periods in 4Q 2024 (7,700) and 4Q 2023 (3,900).

 

Unemployment rates remained low and stable

 

4              Unemployment rates in December 2025 (overall: 2.0%, resident: 2.9%, citizen: 3.0%) were broadly unchanged from September 2025 (overall: 2.0%, resident: 2.8%, citizen: 3.1%).

 

5              Reflecting the broadly stable unemployment rates throughout 2025, the full-year unemployment rates for 20255 remained low (overall: 2.0%, resident: 2.8%, citizen: 3.0%) and were broadly similar to those seen over the past two years6.

 

The incidence and number of retrenchments remained similar to the past quarter

 

6              The incidence of retrenchment remained low at 1.5 retrenched per 1,000 employees in 4Q 2025, comparable to the 1.6 in 3Q 2025. 3,600 employees were retrenched in 4Q 2025, similar to the previous quarter (3,670). Retrenchments were stable across major sectors7, with a majority occurring due to business reorganisation or restructuring.

 

7              For the full year of 2025, the incidence of retrenchment increased slightly to 6.2 retrenched per 1,000 employees (14,400), from 5.9 retrenched per 1,000 employees (13,020) in 2024, driven mainly by retrenchments in Transportation & Storage and Financial Services. The increase largely reflects higher retrenchments earlier in the first three quarters of 2025 compared to the preceding year. Throughout 2025, business reorganisation or restructuring remained the primary reason for retrenchments.

 

Labour Market Outlook

 

8              Looking ahead to 1Q 2026, business expectations suggest that the labour market will continue to expand, albeit amidst increased hiring caution. The share of firms expecting to hire in the next three months edged down slightly from 44.1% in September 2025 to 43.3% in December 2025. At the same time, a larger share of firms expects to raise wages over the same period, rising from 19.3% to 26.4%, pointing to improving business outcomes and continued competition for labour in certain areas. While the share of firms expecting to retrench workers also increased from 2.3% to 4.3% over the same period, it remains low, suggesting selective workforce adjustments rather than broad-based job cuts.

 

Conclusion

 

9              While the labour market continues to expand and remain tight, employers and workers should continue to adapt and transform so as to seize new opportunities. The Government provides a suite of programmes to support employers and workers in investing and building up human capital:

 

  1. For employers: Employers can tap on our existing schemes to reskill and upskill their workers, such as the Career Conversion Programmes and Mid-Career Pathways Programme. The SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit will be redesigned in 2026 along with a fresh $10,000 of credits to use on workforce transformation programmes. Employers who have not tapped on their existing credits can do so to offset out-of-pocket costs for these programmes.

     

  2. For workers: Through Career Health SG, Singaporeans are empowered to take charge of their careers and access better job opportunities. Workers can make use of the CareersFinder feature on Workforce Singapore (WSG)’s MyCareersFuture job portal as well as career coaching and guidance services provided by WSG and NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute to explore career and training options and chart their career plans. Singaporeans can make use of Career Conversion Programmes and the SkillsFuture (Level-Up) Programme to support their efforts to switch into new jobs or sectors.

     

  3. For fresh graduates: Alongside career guidance services from the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), fresh graduates can use WSG’s Career Starter Pack and the Polaris by Volunteer Career Advisors programme, which connects young workforce entrants with industry experts for insights on career paths, access to industry knowledge and professional networks.

     

  4. For the involuntarily unemployed: The SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support scheme launched in April 2025 provides temporary financial support of up to $6,000 over six months to involuntarily unemployed individuals who are engaged in active job search.

 

10           The Labour Market Report Fourth Quarter 2025, to be released in mid-March 2026, will provide a comprehensive assessment and more details of the labour market situation in 4Q 2025 and full year 2025. This will include resident and non-resident employment breakdowns, sectoral data, number of job vacancies, labour turnover, and re-entry rates among retrenched residents.

 

For More Information

 

11           The full report is available online on MOM’s Research and Statistics Department website at stats.mom.gov.sg.

 

12           For data requests and queries pertaining to the report, please reach out to MOM’s Research and Statistics Department at mom_rsd@mom.gov.sg.

FOOTNOTE

  1. Based on the Ministry of Trade & Industry (MTI)’s advance estimates for 4Q 2025, Singapore’s economy grew by 5.7% year-on-year in 4Q 2025, faster than the 4.3% growth recorded in the previous quarter.
  2. Employment figures cited in this press release exclude Migrant Domestic Workers. As per MOM’s usual practice, we will not publish resident and non-resident employment change figures in the Labour Market Advance Release, since these numbers are preliminary. The final numbers will be released in the Labour Market Report, 4Q 2025.
  3. Data for 4Q 2025 and the full year of 2025 are preliminary (denoted as “p” in the Annex).
  4. Refers to Singapore citizens and permanent residents.
  5. Based on a simple average of the monthly unemployment rates throughout the year.
  6. Unemployment rates: 2023 (overall: 1.9%, resident: 2.7%, citizen: 2.9%); 2024 (overall: 2.0%, resident: 2.8%, citizen: 2.9%)
  7. Refers to Manufacturing, Construction, and Services. Data for the three major sectors may not add up to the total as the latter includes Agriculture, Fishing, Quarrying, Utilities and Sewage & Waste Management.