MOH to hire over 4,000 new nurses by end of 2023

The new nurses to be onboarded next year are 700 more than the 2021 figure.

To replace the nurses Singapore has “lost” to other countries, the Ministry of Health said it will hire close to 4,000 nurses by the end of next year.

In his speech at the Tan Chin Tuan Nursing Award for Enrolled Nurses 2022, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said the new nurses to be onboarded by next year is about 10% of Singapore’s current nursing workforce, and 700 more than the number of nurses hired in 2021. 

“The increase is somewhat backloaded, starting from around the middle of next year. You will see the ramp-up in the middle of next year, and all the way to the end of next year, to an estimated additional 4,000 local and foreign nurses,” Ong said.

Of the 4,000 to be hired, 60% will be foreign nurses, and 40% will be local nurses.

Ong said the higher proportion of foreign to local nurses will make up for the slowdown in foreign nurse recruitment due to COVID-19 border restrictions over the past two years.

“Even whilst we ramp up foreign recruitment to bolster our nursing workforce, the large majority of our nursing workforce, let me assure everyone, will continue to be local and contributed through our nursing school intakes and mid-career training programmes,” Ong said.