Singapore, in terms of its labour market, only has one major problem and that is the shortage of labour. The demographic of the residents within its labour force is ageing at a compounded annual growth rate of 3.91%, from 14.02% of its labour force aged 60 and above in 2018 to 16.99% in 2022. The inflow of younger residents into the labour force is looking bleak as years pass by which does not help to mitigate the situation. To exacerbate the labour shortage issue in Singapore, the country is also experiencing a skills mismatch problem that leads to a lot of jobs being left unfilled. With the inevitable adoption of IR4.0 technologies across the industries, new jobs start to pop out and many conventional, labour-intensive jobs start to diminish, leaving a lot of workers in the market unfit for the new IR4.0 roles. According to the Ministry of Manpower Singapore, from 2002 to 2023, the job vacancy to unemployed person ratio has been increasing at a compounded annual growth rate of 9.28%. The ratio worsened especially during the pandemic recovery years from 2021 onwards, understandably due to the widespread adoption of digitalisation during the pandemic year of 2020. In 2021 alone, the ratio skyrocketed by 160%, from 0.65 in 2020 to 1.69 in 2021. However, one of the ways utilised to solve this labour shortage issue is by bringing in a lot of foreign labour and Singapore is well known as the receiving end of talents from the region. At any moment of time, foreign labour constitutes about 40% of the labour force whereas as of June 2023 alone, the total foreign workforce is 1.49 mil. But, lately, the Singaporean Government has started to be more selective in allowing more foreign professionals into the country. Instead of opening the floodgates to foreign professionals, they are carefully selecting the right candidates to supplement the local workforce, such as the Singapore Overseas Networks & Expertise (ONE) Pass. The government also wanted to prioritise locals when hiring.

The Singaporean Government already spent a lot on its manpower in order to maintain its status as a country with a deep pool of talent. However, in order to solve the skills mismatch that contributing to the labour shortage issue, within the Budget 2023 speech, the Government announced the Jobs-Skills Integrators. The Jobs-Skills Integrators will engage the industry to understand the manpower and skills gap in the industry and work with training providers to update existing training programs or develop new ones that will close the skills gap. The program will also work closely with employment facilitation agencies, get buy-in from industry partners and unions and identify individuals with the right attitude and fit for training. Eventually, the Government hopes that this program that will deliver training to workers will translate into better employment and earnings prospects.