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Job Vacancies 2024

Overview

1 The labour market has remained tight, with vacancies continuing to outnumber jobseekers.1 Among this pool of vacancies, close to half were newly created positions, mostly due to business expansion.

2 The proportion of vacancies for Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs) rose further in 2024. The PMET demand was keener within growth sectors such as Information & Communications, Financial & Insurance Services, and Professional Services. Jobs with a technology focus such as software, web a1nd multimedia developers remained in demand, alongside finance and healthcare professionals. Increasingly, employers are looking beyond academic qualifications when filling vacancies, showing greater willingness to consider other factors such as applicants’ relevant experience and skillsets.

Main Findings

Newly created positions made up 45.7% of vacancies in 2024

3 The proportion of newly created positions2 among all vacancies decreased slightly from a high base in 2023 (47.3%) to 45.7% in 2024, but remained on an uptrend over the longer term. Similar to the previous years, more than half (or 54.7%) of the newly created positions were a result of an expansion of existing business functions as the economy grew3. More new positions opened up due to firms’ expansion into new functions (from 24.4% in 2023 to 31.2% in 2024), as well as restructuring or redesigning of jobs (from 6.2% to 6.5%).

4 Information & Communications (75.1%) continued to have the highest proportion of vacancies for new positions. Professional Services (49.1%) and Financial & Insurance Services (48.9%) also created an above-average proportion (45.7%) of newly created positions this year, in line with the overall economic expansion of these sectors4.

5 Retail Trade (from 55.6% in 2023 to 39.3% in 2024) and Food & Beverage Services (from 57.2% to 44.4%) saw declines in the proportion of newly created job vacancies within the sector, after peaking in the previous year. This could reflect the sectors’ slower business momentum as locals shift their spending to overseas travel destinations. 

PMET share of job vacancies continued to rise in 2024, reflecting the demand from firms in growth sectors

6 The proportion of PMET vacancies continued to rise, from 57.2% in 2023 to 57.7% in 20245. In sectors with growing PMET employment, there were also higher shares of PMET vacancies, such as Information & Communications (15.0%), Financial & Insurance Services (10.4%) and Professional Services (10.2%)6. In these growth sectors, resident PMET employment has risen in tandem with non-resident PMET employment, indicating the complementarity of the resident and non-resident workforce.

7 In line with this trend, 2024 saw sustained demand for high-skilled talent in key growth sectors. Software, web, and multimedia developers continued to be in high demand, along with computer network, infrastructure and platform professionals, reflecting the expanding digital economy. Additionally, financial and investment advisers emerged among the top ten most sought-after PMET roles, highlighting the sectoral shifts in the labour market.

More employers are looking beyond academic qualifications when filling PMET vacancies

8 Academic qualification was not the main determinant in hiring for 78.8% of the vacancies in 2024, an increase from 74.9% in 2023. From 2017 to 2024, the increase was steeper among PMET vacancies. For jobs where academic qualifications were not the main consideration, employers typically have other primary considerations in selecting candidates for the openings (66.0% of such vacancies)7. For 36.1% of the vacancies where employers do not prioritise academic qualifications in hiring, they reported that skills-based hiring for these jobs had resulted in better outcomes, including a faster hiring process, ability to tap on a broader talent pool and improved employee performance. These developments suggest that employers are prioritising factors such as job applicants’ relevant experience and skillset, and these further strengthen the rationale for skills-based hiring.

9 Amidst a tight labour market, employers demonstrated openness to selecting candidates from a wider pool. For 58.1% of vacancies, employers had indicated that they were open to hire candidates with qualifications lower than what was stated in job advertisements.

Percentage of vacancies unfilled for six months or more has declined

10 The percentage of job vacancies that have been unfilled for at least six months has decreased in 2024 to 19.4%, down from 23.5% in 2023. This is now half of what it was in 2014, when it was 41.4%. The biggest drop over the past decade has been in non-PMET vacancies, which fell from 54.2% in 2014 to 27.2% in 2024. This reflects successful efforts to alleviate the manpower crunch for non-PMET jobs through access to foreign manpower, technology adoption, job redesign, skills upgrading as well as efforts to raise wages through the Progressive Wage Model. PMET jobs (14.4%) continue to see stronger hiring outcomes compared to non-PMET vacancies (27.2%), which remain more challenging to fill.

11 Non-PMET jobs such as general office clerks and food service counter attendants had a higher share of vacancies that were less difficult to fill. PMET vacancies with less difficulty in filling include management executives for non-specialised duties, IT support technicians, and tax associate professionals.

Conclusion

12 Newly created positions form a sizeable share of job vacancies, reflecting the evolving nature of our economy and emerging opportunities, but increasingly there are more newly created vacancies due to redesign or restructuring of jobs as well as expansion of new functions. The Government will support employers to press on with business and workforce transformation. The Government will also continue to empower Singaporeans to strengthen their career health, compete strongly in the economy and work towards their career aspirations.

13 Employers can tap on the following range of programmes to transform their workforce and implement initiatives to increase their talent pool via skills-based hiring and flexible work arrangements:

  1. Workforce Singapore (WSG) has worked with sector agencies to launch 17 Job Transformation Maps (JTMs) which provide actionable insights on the impact of technology and automation on businesses and jobs.
  2. As announced at Budget 2025, the Government will be introducing the SkillsFuture Workforce Development Grant (WDG) as part of the Enterprise Workforce Transformation Package. This will bring together workforce transformation schemes administered by WSG and SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG), and simplify the application process. Schemes under the WDG include the Career Conversion Programmes (CCPs), which support mid-career workers to undergo industry-recognised training. Employers who have not done so can tap on the SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit to offset out-of-pocket costs for these schemes.
  1. Employers can tap on the Support for Job Redesign under the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG-JR) to redesign jobs in anticipation of change and make them more productive and attractive to jobseekers.
  2. To encourage the adoption of skills-based hiring and tap on transferable skills and experience, employers should ensure that their HR professionals are equipped to do so by encouraging them to take the certification by the Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP). IHRP certified professionals will be able to tap on curated HR resources, keep abreast of latest manpower policies and learn from strong expertise in the certified community.
  3. Employers can tap on a larger talent pool and manage manpower shortages by implementing flexible work arrangements (FWAs) such as flexi-hours and tele-working. This can support workers who may be otherwise unable to take on a job due to personal demands such as caregiving. The tripartite partners have released the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests in April 2024 to provide employers and employees with clear guidance on navigating discussions about FWAs, so that mutually beneficial arrangements can be found.

14 The Government will continue to empower Singaporeans to take charge of their career health and navigate changes in the economy and jobs.

  1. Workers can make use of the CareersFinder feature on WSG’s MyCareersFuture job portal, which harnesses data and artificial intelligence to explore career options that make use of their skills and experience, and pathways to reach their career goals.
  2. Workers can also tap on career coaching and guidance services provided by WSG and NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute. For example, workers can tap on Polaris, a suite of personalised career programmes which provides career guidance for employed individuals. Workers can also tap on the base tier of SkillsFuture Credit, which comprises the $500 opening credit and the one-off $500 top-up given in 2020, to cover the expenses for eligible career guidance services endorsed by WSG.

For More Information

15 The “Job Vacancies 2024” report is released by the Manpower Research and Statistics Department, Ministry of Manpower. The full report and technical notes on the various indicators are available at stats.mom.gov.sg.

FOOTNOTE

  1. There were 1.64 job vacancies for every job seeker in December 2024. At 3.1% in December 2024, the job vacancy rate was higher than the average of 2.3% between 2000 and 2019.
  2. These are positions that are created as a result of business expansion of its existing functions (e.g. opening of new outlets), or new roles that the firms are hiring for due to restructuring or development in new business areas.
  3. According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI)’s Economic Survey of Singapore 2024, the Singapore economy expanded by 4.4 per cent year-on-year in 2024, faster than the 1.8 per cent expansion in 2023.
  4. According to the Economic Survey of Singapore 2024 by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Information & Communications (5.0% growth year-on-year) and Finance & Insurance (6.8%) were among the top positive contributors to GDP growth in 2024.
  5. The PMET vacancy rate has decreased from 4.0% in 2023 to 3.3% in 2024, although it is still higher than pre-recessionary periods (around 2 to 3%) and has also trended higher over the longer term, from 3.0% in 2014 to 3.3% in 2024. Taken together with the low unemployment rate, the decline in the PMET vacancy rate from the high in 2023 suggests that PMET vacancies are more likely to be filled in 2024 compared to 2023.
  6. Based on latest available data, these sectors accounted for more than 35% of all PMET job vacancies in 2024. Source: Labour Market Survey, Manpower Research & Statistics Department, MOM.
  7. Employers ranked relevant experience, and skills and abilities as the top two factors for considering applicants for the position.