Introduction
Mr Speaker Sir, I rise in support of Budget 2026. It is a careful Budget. A responsible Budget. But more importantly, it must be a Budget that reassures Singaporeans workers who are anxious about their place in a changing economy.
We are living through an in‑between moment. Technology is moving faster than jobs. AI is advancing faster than wages. Foreign investments are creating much fewer jobs than before. Economic growth is not always translating into worker confidence.
Workers tell us this plainly. They worry about job security. They worry about cost‑of‑living. They worry about whether the next disruption will be theirs.
If we ask workers to work hard, upgrade, adapt, we must also ask the economy to deliver real outcomes for them. “When workers do everything right but still feel left behind, the problem is not their effort — it is the system.”
This is why, in this Budget debate, I will speak for five groups of workers.
I call them the 5 ‘U’s – the (i) Unemployed, (ii) Under-Employed, (iii) Under-Represented, (iv) Untrained, and (v) Under-Served.
Unemployed
My first ‘U’ worker group is the Unemployed, specifically the involuntarily unemployed. To be candid, last year we saw many retrenchments, and many ‘bad retrenchments’ as well. Employers who did not abide by the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment (TAMEM) made headlines. Each time, NTUC and our unions stepped in, fought for members and workers including securing payouts, and escalated the issue to MOM.
Drivers of retrenchments like business restructuring and uncertainties will persist this year. NTUC and unions stand ready to support impacted workers, including Professionals, Managers, and Executives (PMEs) who may not be covered under Collective Agreements. I ask the Government to give NTUC and unions more time, strength, and information to do so. First, introducing advanced Mandatory Retrenchment Notifications (MRNs) to unions and the Government can provide more time for early intervention. Currently employers with at least 10 employees are required to notify MOM within 5 working days after notifying employees. The Government can consider all MRNs to be made prior to retrenchments. I say it again, prior to retrenchment. Second, there should be stronger penalties for employers who do not comply with this requirement, and not just a slap on the wrist. Third, the Government can consider sharing information with NTUC and unions on sectors and companies that might be disrupted due to economic restructuring, including expected scale of impact and timeline, past retrenchment incidence, and past retrenchment benefit level.
I am heartened that after a decade of lobbying, involuntarily unemployed workers facing temporary financial strain can now benefit from transitional support for up to six months while they undergo training or look for better-fitting jobs through the SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support Scheme (JSS). According to NTUC’s most recent Survey on Economic Sentiments, about 40% of almost 1,000 workers expressed concerns about losing their jobs. From April to August last year, MOM also shared that 60% of 7,200 JSS applications received were rejected, of which one of the top three reasons for unsuccessful applications was exceeding the income threshold of $5,000 per month. I therefore opine that more can be done to support the broad middle of involuntarily unemployed workers.
The Government can consider raising the income threshold from $5,000 to $7,600 to better cover PMEs. By easing financial pressure, JSS helps workers avoid rushing into poor job matches that lead to underemployment.
Under-Employed
Sir, this brings me to my second ‘U’ worker group, the Under-Employed, which can be broadly defined as those who are under-utilised in the workforce in terms of availability, qualifications, skills, or experience. Time-related underemployment, such as when an individual who has the capacity to work a full-time position works part-time, is measured by MOM and widely studied. However, non-time-related underemployment, such as when a highly qualified, skilled, or experienced expert holds a junior-level position, is more difficult to determine. This is why NTUC has collaborated with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) to study this issue since 2023.
There is also voluntary and involuntary underemployment. Voluntary underemployment, where workers opt to work fewer hours or in a less demanding role to pursue better work-life balance, personal interests, or a less stressful career, can represent diverse aspirations and values. It is the involuntary underemployed group that warrants our attention. These are workers who stay in contract or gig work because they cannot secure a full-time position. They are also over-qualified workers who seek to move up the career (ladder) but are stuck in junior-level positions and pay.
Over time, underemployed workers can become trapped in a cycle of low-paid and insecure work, limiting opportunities for upward mobility. Women and caregivers in particular are at a higher risk of underemployment, and consequently unequal pay, as they take more time out of the workforce and seek flexible work arrangements to balance caregiving commitments. I therefore submit that the Government broaden its definition of underemployment and collaborate closely with tripartite partners to monitor this issue and maximise the productivity and earning potential of every worker, especially after NTUC and SUTD’s underemployment study findings are released in the coming months.
Fixed Term Contract (FTC) workers are one group acutely vulnerable to job insecurity. The Government can encourage employers to emplace Fixed Term Contract workers into permanent roles after two cycles of contract renewals, and regard successive contracts renewed within two months of the previous contract as continuous service, instead of the current one-month window stipulated in the Tripartite Advisory on the Employment of Term Contract Employees.
Another group vulnerable to involuntary underemployment that has been concerning of late is young workers and fresh graduates. According to the most recent Graduate Employment Surveys from Autonomous Universities, Private Education Institutions, and Polytechnics, fewer graduates secured permanent full-time positions within six months of graduation across the board, even as starting salaries continued to rise. While this is in part due to the younger generation’s propensity to explore diverse and flexible career paths, many also face external challenges like the shrinking of entry-level roles accelerated by AI and increasing saturation of diploma and degree-holders.
Earlier this month, NTUC hosted a dialogue with students at the SMU (Singapore Management University) on the subject. I was there as well. Students spoke frankly about sending out dozens, even hundreds, of job applications without even a single reply. Even ‘internship-stacking’ may not be deemed as sufficient as employers increasingly preferred to hire applicants with at least minimum one to two years of full-time work experience. Early-career professionals impacted by retrenchments are also met with stiff competition as ‘job-hugging’ or resignation rates hit a historic twenty-year low.
Labour market transitions can eliminate existing opportunities but also yield new ones, such as new sectors and more flexible or meaningful forms of work. For example, Singapore is constantly ranked as one of the most AI-exposed countries in the world, but also one of the most AI-ready. Young people will need to know how to reach these new opportunities, and our institutions must be equipped to support them. The Government launched the GRaduate Industry Traineeships (GRIT) Programme last year to absorb recruitment and training risk for employers while helping fresh graduates gain industry experience and practical skills. This is a good start. To avoid skills-jobs mismatches or youths getting stuck in gig, contract, or part-time work after long and unfruitful job searches, more concerted effort must be made to invest in human capital and skills, broaden the range of good jobs with good prospects, and growing local companies and startups, many of which are aligned with recommendations outlined by the Economic Strategic Review.
The Government can consider launching an extended and higher-value iteration of GRIT in high-growth and high-demand sectors with opportunities ranging from one to two years and with monthly traineeship allowances on-par with starting salaries. Host Organisations must convert trainees into permanent full-time employees unless a valid reason and supporting evidence are submitted. The Government can also set aside more resources to groom early-career professionals by sending them for overseas work postings. This is opportune as the Market Readiness Assistance grant and a host of other schemes are enhanced to support local companies to internationalise. EDB recently announced a twenty-year-low number of jobs expected to be created, despite attracting more investments. This is a global problem in the age of automation and AI, but in Singapore we cannot accept an economic model where growth advances while workers are left behind. Structured career pathways and raised wages should continue to be encouraged in traditionally undervalued fields with unmet demand like the skilled trades, education, and care services.
Under-Represented
My third ‘U’ worker group is the Under-Represented, referring to local Professionals, Managers, Executives (PMEs) who make up almost half of the workforce and disproportionately impacted by economic restructuring and technological disruptions, but who may lack representation and protection benefits. Lower-income PMEs, sometime disguised, for example, are not covered under Part IV of the Employment Act, which provides for rest days, hours of work, and overtime pay. I therefore call on the Government to increase the Employment Act Part IV income thresholds, something that I raised in this house before, for non-workmen to at least $3,000, which will better reflect today’s workforce demographics and help curb overworking norms. To ensure protections in the Employment Act keep pace with wage growth and workforce changes, the Government can commit to reviewing the Employment Act every five years or when salaries reach a particular threshold, with a mid-term review of income thresholds to ensure legislation does not lag economic shifts.
The Government can also consider reviewing the Industrial Relations Act, which stipulates that PMEs cannot be represented by unions if they are in senior management, and executives with duties involving hiring, firing or confidential information that present a conflict of interest.
I suggest there be greater clarity about exclusions other than what is provided in the tripartite guidelines as there are employers and human resource professionals who are still riding on this clause to disallow unions to extend their scope of representation especially for purposes of collective bargaining.
Currently rank-and-file unions can represent eligible executives on a limited individual basis for specific industrial matters including retrenchment benefits, dismissal, breach of individual contract, victimisation, and re-employment dispute.
I ask that the Government broaden this scope to also include grievance handling.
For over a decade, I have advocated for a compendium of measures to level the playing field and strengthen the Singaporean Core for our local PMEs, including legislation against errant employers who discriminate against Singaporeans, a foreign-PME dependency ratio, stricter Employment Pass application conditions, and many others. Yet local PMEs, especially those who work in Multi-National Corporations (MNCs), tell me that they still feel underrepresented in numbers and rank at their workplace. We can say time and again that it is not a zero-sum game, but when MNCs retrench equally knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced local PMEs to retain cheaper foreign manpower, or when local PMEs are disproportionately underrepresented in senior and leadership positions and paid less, it can feel like this.
To be clear, foreign PMEs remain essential to complement Singapore’s workforce. They fill critical skill and labour gaps, bring global expertise and networks, and help keep companies growing rather than relocating. Many are friends and neighbours in our communities. The key is to create policy that encourages foreign PMEs to complement rather than displace the local workforce, encourage skill transference and local-foreign integration, and position local PMEs for senior and leadership positions as well as high-paying and high-value jobs.
I therefore welcome the Government’s decision to raise qualifying salaries for Employment Pass (EP) and S Pass (SP) holders to maintain the quality of EP and SP holders as wages rise. But the government also needs to watch for parity for Singaporeans who do the same work and paid similarly and (while) work alongside these S-Pass and EP holders.
But the government also needs to ensure parity for Singaporeans who perform the same work and receive similar pay while working alongside S Pass and Employment Pass holders.
I also continue to call on the Government to monitor, the previously called ‘triple weak’ companies and sectors and encourage them to improve their workforce profiles by removing preferential tax or not awarding public sector contracts for recalcitrant companies. The Government can also consider awarding bonus points under the Complementarity Assessment Framework (COMPASS) based on the proportion of Singaporeans in management positions.
Untrained
My fourth ‘U’ worker group is the ‘Untrained.’ Unlike other countries, where unions often must lobby for uneven training and upskilling opportunities, Singapore continuously doles out funding and promotes (continuing education and training) CET as a national priority. Today, we enjoy a wide range of courses and schemes like SkillsFuture Credits to improve accessibility. However, there remains a minority of workers who have not accessed these resources we can work to reach.
During SkillsFuture’s 10-year anniversary last year, I suggested to consolidate efforts and streamline offerings across different arms of the CET ecosystem including NTUC’s e2i, WSG, SSG, training providers and the various Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), to control quality and prevent overlap. I am glad that the Government considered the recommendation and are creating a one-stop-shop new agency for skills training, career guidance, and job matching services by merging SSG and WSG. A next step could be enhancing Career Conversion Programmes (CCP) to cover even more sectors and increase offerings.
As the transition to an AI-driven economy approaches, NTUC has launched its AI-ready Singapore initiative to strengthen workers' long-term employability through learning and applying AI skills to daily work. NTUC will roll out AI training pathways and subsidise up to 50% of subscription costs of eligible AI tools for members for an initial period of two years. Notwithstanding, a tripartite standard on ethical and non-discriminatory use of AI in recruitment, performance, promotion, and termination decisions can boost the AI-readiness of Singapore’s workforce. The Government can also encourage employers to partner unions to start upskilling and/or redeploying impacted staff early on. Together we will move AI-literacy to AI-fluency for every worker, every department, every company, and every industry, so that no worker is left behind.
Under-Served
My fifth and final ‘U’ worker group is the ‘Underserved,’ referring to persons with disabilities and ex-offenders. The Uplifting Employment Credit (UEC) for ex-offenders and the Enabling Employment Credit (EEC) for persons with disabilities, which provide employers with wage offsets to enhance employment support for disconnected individuals and widen our labour pool, are commendable initiatives. I hope that the Government continues to embed inclusive hiring into mainstream workforce policy to unlock under-utilised potential and ensure all workers can contribute fully and justly, as well as to boost the employment and employability of ex-offenders and persons with disabilities. I note that the UEC scheme ended on December 2025 and ask that an extension be considered.
I contend that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in workplaces should not be a compliance obligation but treated as workforce infrastructure. This means equipping managers and HR with the skills to productively operate a team with different needs, entrenching flexible work arrangements as a norm, and avoiding cliff effects in policy support. As persons with disabilities and ex-offenders are more likely to be concentrated in lower-wage and lower-skilled jobs and sectors that have higher rates of unemployment and/or underemployment, a more concerted effort can also be made to prevent reproducing inequalities for these two groups.
Conclusion
Sir, in conclusion, in this era of AI, ageing, and global uncertainty, Singaporeans are not asking for guarantees.
They are asking for fairness. They are asking for opportunity. They are asking that effort be rewarded.
That is why this Budget must work for the 5 ‘U’s – the (i) Unemployed, (ii) Under-Employed, (iii) Under-Represented, (iv) Untrained, and (v) Under-Served
“In a time of transition, we will only succeed if ‘U’ and ‘Me’ move forward in Unity.”
Mr Speaker Sir, I support the Budget. Thank you.
