AI can support recruitment decisions, but human judgement must still lead the final hiring choice. Photo by Canva
Singapore recorded 4,620 retrenchments in the second quarter of 2026, raising fresh concerns about PMET employment, re-employment challenges and the future of Singapore’s workforce.
Yet despite rising retrenchments, employers continue to face difficulties finding suitable talent.
This raises a fundamental question:
If Singapore still has job vacancies, why are experienced professionals struggling to find work?
According to the Ministry of Manpower’s Labour Market Report for Q2 2026, retrenchments increased from 3,830 in Q1 2026 to 4,620 in Q2 2026. Meanwhile, the six-month re-entry rate among retrenched residents declined from 60.7% to 54.9%.
However, Singapore still recorded 1.48 job vacancies for every unemployed person in June 2026.
A recent Channel NewsAsia commentary published on 29 September 2026 highlighted that the challenges surrounding retrenchment extend beyond the number of workers losing their jobs. How quickly displaced employees find new opportunities, and whether those opportunities offer comparable responsibilities and salaries, also matters.
While much of the discussion has focused on how retrenched workers should adapt, Singapore employers must confront another important question:
Are businesses doing enough to adapt their hiring practices, redesign jobs and recognise the transferable skills of experienced professionals?
As Singapore navigates workforce transformation, skills-based hiring, job redesign and career conversion may be crucial to closing the gap between available talent and business needs.
Singapore Retrenchments in 2026: What the Latest MOM Figures Reveal
Singapore’s labour market remains relatively resilient, but the latest retrenchment figures reveal emerging workforce challenges.
According to MOM’s Q2 2026 Labour Market Report:
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4,620 workers were retrenched, compared with 3,830 in Q1 2026.
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54.9% of retrenched residents re-entered employment within six months, compared with 60.7% in the previous reporting quarter.
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68,600 job vacancies remained available in June 2026, down from 73,300 in March.
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1.48 job vacancies existed for every unemployed person, indicating that vacancies still outnumbered unemployed individuals.
The six-month re-entry figures refer to different cohorts of retrenched workers and should not be interpreted as tracking the same individuals across both quarters.
Retrenchments were concentrated in sectors including manufacturing, information and communications, and financial services, primarily due to business reorganisation and restructuring.
The key issue is not only whether jobs exist.
These figures highlight an important distinction.
Having available jobs does not necessarily mean having suitable employment opportunities for every retrenched worker.
A professional with extensive experience in one industry may find that available positions require different technical skills, offer lower remuneration or demand qualifications unrelated to their strongest capabilities.
For employers, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity to reconsider how talent is assessed and recruited.
Why Are Retrenched PMETs Struggling to Find Jobs in Singapore?
Professionals, managers, executives and technicians often accumulate valuable industry expertise, leadership experience and specialised competencies over many years.
However, these strengths do not always translate directly into new employment opportunities.
1. Traditional hiring requirements may overlook transferable skills
Many Singapore employers still prioritise candidates with direct industry experience or previous job titles that closely match the advertised position.
This approach may unintentionally exclude capable professionals from different sectors.
For example, an experienced operations manager from the financial services industry may possess transferable capabilities in project management, stakeholder communication, process improvement and resource planning.
These skills could be valuable in logistics, healthcare administration, business operations or other industries.
Yet if an employer insists on several years of experience within the exact industry, the candidate may never progress beyond the initial screening stage.
2. Salary expectations and job suitability create additional challenges
As highlighted in the CNA commentary, securing another job does not necessarily mean that a retrenched professional has fully recovered from the economic impact of losing employment.
Experienced professionals may face difficult decisions when available positions offer significantly lower salaries, different responsibilities or reduced seniority.
For employers, successful recruitment should therefore be about more than filling vacancies quickly.
It should also consider whether the candidate’s experience, expectations and potential align with the role’s long-term opportunities.
3. Changing business requirements create new competency gaps
Digital transformation, artificial intelligence and automation are changing how organisations operate.
As certain tasks become automated, employers may increasingly require capabilities in digital systems, data analysis, workforce planning and process optimisation.
Experienced workers may already possess many foundational competencies required for these roles but lack exposure to specific technologies or systems.
Instead of automatically rejecting candidates who do not meet every technical requirement, employers should consider whether targeted training can address those gaps.
Skills-Based Hiring in Singapore: Moving Beyond Job Titles and Qualifications
Skills-based hiring is a recruitment approach that evaluates candidates based on relevant competencies, demonstrated capabilities and transferable experience rather than relying primarily on academic qualifications or previous job titles.
For Singapore employers facing talent shortages and recruitment difficulties, this approach can help expand access to experienced candidates.
Rather than asking whether someone has previously held the same job title, employers can assess whether that individual possesses the essential skills needed to perform the role successfully.
How does skills-based hiring work?
Consider a company recruiting a workforce operations manager.
A traditional job advertisement may require five years of experience in the same industry, knowledge of specific scheduling software and previous responsibility for managing a similarly sized team.
However, a candidate from another sector may already possess strong skills in workforce scheduling, operational coordination, team supervision and productivity management.
The main gap may simply be familiarity with the company’s software and industry-specific procedures.
Through skills-based hiring, the employer could assess the candidate’s existing capabilities and determine whether the remaining gaps can be addressed through structured on-the-job training.
What employers should assess instead?
This approach encourages organisations to distinguish between:
- Essential skills required to perform the job safely and effectively.
- Transferable competencies gained through previous employment.
- Technical capabilities that can be developed after hiring.
- Qualifications and certifications that are legally or operationally necessary.
By focusing on relevant competencies, employers may identify talent they would otherwise overlook.
Job Redesign in Singapore: Why Employers Must Rethink Existing Roles
While skills-based hiring changes how employers evaluate candidates, job redesign changes how organisations structure work to improve productivity, workforce adaptability and employee contribution.
Job redesign involves reviewing existing responsibilities, workflows, technology and operational requirements to determine whether jobs can be performed more effectively.
It is not simply about reducing responsibilities or lowering performance standards.
Instead, job redesign helps businesses align roles with changing operational needs while making better use of employee capabilities.
How job redesign can support experienced workers
Consider a hypothetical company seeking an experienced operations supervisor.
The existing role requires the employee to manage scheduling, administrative reporting, physical site inspections, manual data entry and team coordination.
Rather than searching indefinitely for a candidate who can perform every responsibility under the existing arrangement, the company could evaluate how the work is structured.
Automating repetitive reporting, simplifying administrative processes or reallocating selected tasks may allow the supervisor to focus on workforce management, operational decision-making and service quality.
Such changes could improve organisational efficiency while making the role more accessible to experienced professionals with relevant management capabilities.
For mature workers, job redesign may also involve reviewing physical demands, adopting appropriate workplace technology or modifying processes to support continued participation in the workforce.
The objective is to create roles that are productive, sustainable and aligned with business needs.
Why Job Redesign Matters for Singapore SMEs
Small and medium-sized enterprises may face particular challenges when recruitment resources are limited and individual employees perform multiple functions.
When hiring becomes difficult, the instinctive response is often to advertise vacancies more widely or increase recruitment efforts.
However, businesses should also examine whether the position itself needs to evolve.
Before recruiting, employers should ask better questions.
Before replacing a vacancy, employers can ask:
- Which responsibilities directly contribute to business outcomes?
- Which repetitive tasks could be simplified or automated?
- Which skills must a candidate possess immediately?
- Which competencies can be developed through structured training?
- Could redesigning the workflow improve productivity and expand the potential talent pool?
These questions help organisations move beyond traditional vacancy replacement towards more strategic workforce planning.
Singapore employers exploring workforce transformation may also consider relevant initiatives under the Enterprise Workforce Transformation Package, including the Workforce Development Grant for Job Redesign+ (WDG-JR+), subject to prevailing eligibility and programme requirements.
Career Conversion Programmes and OJT: Bridging Singapore’s Skills Gap
Skills-based hiring and job redesign can help employers identify suitable talent, but some employees will still need additional training to transition successfully into new roles.
This is where structured on-the-job training and career conversion become important.
Singapore’s Career Conversion Programmes support eligible employers in reskilling mid-career new hires and existing employees for new or redesigned job roles.
Depending on the programme and eligibility criteria, employers may qualify for salary support and structured training assistance.
Why structured OJT matters
An experienced professional transitioning into another industry does not necessarily need to start learning from zero.
They may already possess strong capabilities in leadership, communication, problem-solving and operational management.
What they need is a structured pathway to acquire the remaining industry-specific competencies.
An effective OJT programme can include:
- Identifying the employee’s existing skills and competency gaps.
- Establishing clear role-specific learning objectives.
- Providing supervised workplace assignments.
- Measuring competency development against defined standards.
- Conducting regular performance reviews and feedback sessions.
This approach connects training directly to actual job requirements rather than relying entirely on generic courses.
For employers, structured OJT can support faster adaptation, clearer performance expectations and more consistent capability development.
For employees, it creates a practical opportunity to apply their previous experience in a new environment.
Workforce Transformation: Connecting Recruitment, Learning and Productivity
The discussion surrounding Singapore retrenchments in 2026 also highlights a broader need for integrated workforce planning.
Many organisations approach recruitment, employee training, performance management and workforce productivity as separate functions.
However, these areas are closely connected.
A company introducing new technology may need to redesign existing roles, identify future competency requirements, retrain employees and adjust recruitment criteria simultaneously.
Similarly, an employer facing manpower shortages should consider whether existing workers can be reskilled or redeployed before focusing exclusively on external recruitment.
Workforce transformation should connect four areas
A more integrated workforce transformation strategy should consider:
Recruitment and talent acquisition:
Identifying candidates based on relevant competencies and transferable skills.
Learning and development:
Building structured training pathways to close critical capability gaps.
Employee performance and development:
Understanding current employee strengths, progression opportunities and areas for improvement.
Workforce planning and optimisation:
Assessing manpower capacity, productivity and future workforce requirements.
By connecting these areas, organisations can make more informed decisions about when to hire, train, redeploy or redesign jobs.
This becomes increasingly important as Singapore employers respond to economic uncertainty, technology adoption and an ageing workforce.
Five Practical Steps Singapore Employers Can Take in 2026
For HR leaders, hiring managers and business owners, improving workforce resilience does not necessarily require a complete organisational overhaul.
It begins with making more informed decisions about people and work.
1. Review job descriptions and hiring requirements
Evaluate whether existing job advertisements reflect genuine operational needs.
Distinguish mandatory qualifications from preferred experience and avoid unnecessary restrictions that may exclude capable candidates.
2. Adopt competency-based recruitment assessments
Use structured interviews, relevant practical assessments and skills-based evaluation criteria to recognise transferable experience.
This can help employers identify candidates whose capabilities extend beyond their previous job titles.
3. Identify opportunities for job redesign
Review existing workflows, administrative tasks, physical job requirements and technology adoption.
Determine where changes could improve efficiency or allow employees with different backgrounds to contribute effectively.
4. Invest in structured OJT and career conversion
Identify realistic competency gaps and establish training pathways to help employees transition into new responsibilities.
Explore appropriate career conversion support where eligible.
5. Measure workforce outcomes beyond recruitment numbers
Instead of measuring success solely by the number of vacancies filled, employers should also consider employee retention, skills development, productivity, performance and long-term job suitability.
These indicators provide a more meaningful understanding of workforce effectiveness.
The Future of Employment in Singapore Requires Employers to Adapt Too
Singapore’s 2026 retrenchment figures underline a challenge that extends beyond unemployment statistics.
The country continues to have job opportunities, but experienced professionals may struggle to transition into positions that match their capabilities, salary expectations and career aspirations.
Addressing this mismatch requires action from both workers and employers.
Employees must remain open to learning new capabilities and exploring different career pathways.
At the same time, businesses must reconsider whether their recruitment requirements, job designs and talent development practices remain appropriate for an evolving economy.
Workforce transformation cannot depend only on workers adapting
Singapore’s workforce transformation cannot depend solely on workers adapting to existing jobs.
Employers must also be willing to redesign jobs, recognise transferable skills and create meaningful pathways for experienced talent.
Skills-based hiring, structured on-the-job training, career conversion and job redesign are therefore more than HR initiatives.
They are practical business strategies for improving workforce resilience, sustaining productivity and preparing organisations for future challenges.
Ultimately, the goal should not simply be to help retrenched workers secure another job.
It should be to build a labour market where experienced professionals can continue contributing meaningfully and employers can access the capabilities needed to grow.
How Elitez Supports Recruitment, Job Redesign and Workforce Transformation
At Elitez Group, we believe workforce transformation should deliver meaningful outcomes for both businesses and employees.
Drawing on our experience in recruitment, workforce deployment, training and job redesign, Elitez works with organisations to address changing manpower needs and strengthen workforce capabilities.
From identifying suitable talent to reviewing operational processes and supporting workforce development, our focus is on helping employers build productive, adaptable and sustainable teams.
As Singapore businesses navigate retrenchment trends, changing skills requirements and workforce restructuring, strategic recruitment and effective job redesign will become increasingly important.
Looking to strengthen your recruitment strategy, explore job redesign or improve workforce productivity?
Connect with Elitez Group to learn how our workforce solutions can support your organisation.
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