The labour market segment known as PMET (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) have it good in Singapore, as indicated by the annual job vacancies report released today by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower (MOM).
The report said that in 2024, more than 57 per cent of Singapore job vacancies were for professionals, managers, executives and technicians. This abundance of jobs comes as a result of sustained demand for high-skilled talent.
The past year saw a slight increase in vacancies for PMET candidates, reaching 57.7 per cent in 2024, up from 57.2 per cent in 2023.
Reporting on the MOM data, CNA said that “sectors that had a higher demand for PMETs were information and communications, financial and insurance services, and professional services”. It said that “financial and investment advisers were among the top 10 most sought-after PMET roles”.
“This trend reflects the positive economic outlook and expanding workforce needs within these sectors,” MOM was quoted as saying.
According to the jobs report, the Singapore market also had many vacancies for software, web and multimedia developers and computer network, infrastructure and platform professionals — this demand spike was driven by the increasing digitalisation of the economy.
The percentage of newly created positions (among the overall vacancies) dipped slightly, as per the MOM report — it dropped to 45.7 per cent in 2024 from 47.3 per cent in 2023.
Nonetheless, newly created positions still accounted for a large percentage of the total vacancies, proving the “dynamism” of the Singapore labour market, said Ang Boon Heng, Director of MOM’s manpower research and statistics department. These new positions indicated “a move towards higher-skilled roles”, he said.
The breakup of newly created positions is as follows:
Sectors with more vacancies in newly created roles: Information and communications, professional services, and financial and insurance services.
Sectors with fewer vacancies in newly created roles: Retail trade, and food and beverage services.
Referring to the efficiency of matching available jobs with candidates, MOM said that job matching efficiency had improved.
There could be candidates who had difficulty in finding jobs that matched their skills and qualifications, but the larger trend in Singapore was of improved efficiency.
“People on the ground will say that ‘we have a different experience,’” said Ang Boon Heng, but added that MOM data showed a drop in job mismatches. The improved job matching efficiency was “quite aligned with what we’re seeing also in the hard-to-fill vacancies”, he said.
The definition of a hard-to-fill vacancy is one that has not been filled for at least six months. In 2014, the share of such vacancies in the Singapore job market was 41.4 per cent; dropping to 23.5 per cent by 2023; and then to 19.4 per cent in 2024. This was an indication of better job matching.
