Singapore Affirms Commitment to Support More Women in Workforce at G20 Labour and Employment Ministerial Meeting

Catania, Italy – Singapore’s Minister for Manpower Dr Tan See Leng attended the G20 Labour and Employment Ministerial Meeting (LEMM) in Catania, Italy on 23 June 2021 (Wednesday). At the G20 LEMM, Minister Tan delivered a speech on the topic of “How to progress on the path towards more, better, and equally paid jobs for women”. He highlighted Singapore’s commitment to encouraging and sustaining women’s participation in the workforce.

2 The G20 LEMM is one of the ministerial meetings organised as part of the G20 Leaders Summit 2021. The G20 LEMM focused on the theme “Fostering an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient recovery of labour markets and societies”. The meeting discussed recent labour market trends across the world, and identified policies to address future employment and social challenges amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

3 In Minister Tan’s speech, he spoke about Singapore’s continued commitment towards advancing women’s participation in the workforce through an ecosystem of support. He highlighted four key tenets to Singapore’s strategy to support women in pursuing both their career and personal aspirations, as well as remaining and progressing in their careers:

(a) Facilitating women’s access to employment through national employment facilitation programmes and services that help jobseekers to overcome labour market mismatches;

(b) Enabling women to fulfil both their work and personal responsibilities through the provision of flexible work arrangements and other work-life strategies, including efforts to shape societal norms and mindsets to support work-life harmony;

(c) Shifting societal norms of women as primary caregivers, and promoting shared caregiving responsibilities; and

(d) Ensuring a fair, safe, and progressive working environment for women through enforcement and education efforts to address workplace discrimination and harassment.

4 Minister Tan also shared that Singapore has dedicated 2021 as the Year of Celebrating SG Women. Through the Conversations on Singapore Women’s Development, a national effort is underway to gather public feedback and ground-up ideas on how we can better support women to pursue their aspirations.

5 In addition, Minister Tan met several of his counterparts on the sidelines of the LEMM to exchange views on recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as best practices in labour issues.