Hiring outlook in Singapore dips for three quarters in a row: report

The transport, logistics and auto segment was the most optimistic.

Hiring sentiment in the Lion City has weakened further for the next quarter, marking the third consecutive quarter of waning optimism as more employers streamline operations, according to a report from global workforce solutions company ManpowerGroup.

Its Employment Outlook Survey showed 44% of 525 employers surveyed in the city-state are planning to hire for the July to September period, 24% said they are scaling back while nearly a third expect their headcount to remain the same.

After accounting for seasonal adjustments, the city-state’s net employment outlook (NEO) for the coming quarter settled at 20%, down by four percentage points from the second quarter and by 14 percentage points from the year before.

Hiring sentiment has been on a downward trend since the first quarter of the year.

Despite the gloomy outlook, ManpowerGroup said there are still bright spots in certain sectors. The survey found that employers in eight of nine sectors are looking to increase headcount, with those in the transport, logistics and automotive industries showing the most optimism.

Sectors with strong hiring demand also include healthcare and life sciences as well as industrials and materials segments.

By company size, medium-sized firms with 10 to 49 employees are looking to hire the most (46%), followed by bigger companies or those that employ 250 to 999 staff (39%), while micro-enterprises were rather gloomy (-13%).

"The bulk of the dip in hiring sentiment can be attributed to companies making strategic moves to streamline their business and looking offshore to cut costs or fill the skills gap,” said Linda Teo, country manager of ManpowerGroup Singapore. “As flexible working arrangements gain more traction in the country, more companies are likely to consider remote workers to fill the growing discrepancy between workers’ skills and the demands of available jobs,”

Meanwhile, more than half of Singapore firms have already adopted AI in their businesses while around 57% of companies expects they can even increase hiring due to AI over the next two years.