We should not let rising retrenchment numbers talk us into a recession narrative that the vacancy data do not support. Second-quarter labour market figures show painful layoffs—4,620 retrenchments, the highest quarterly count since the pandemic surge—yet unemployment stayed low and there were still 1.48 job openings for every unemployed person in June. The proper read is uncomfortable: more workers are being pushed out of specific firms and sectors, while the economy as a whole continues to hoard unfilled roles, especially for experienced professionals.
Two statistics, one labour market
Manpower Ministry reporting on 21 September described a market that expanded employment even as firms retrenched to restructure. Vacancies fell from 73,300 in March to 68,600 in June, but the decline was concentrated in financial services and information and communications PMET posts—not a broad collapse in hiring appetite. Entry-level PMET vacancies remained large, accounting for about 45 percent of all openings. That is not a picture of employers on strike; it is a picture of mismatch and selective pruning.
Retrenchment hurts whether the aggregate ratio looks tight. Displaced technicians in electronics and back-office staff in banking do not experience “1.48 vacancies”; they experience weeks of searching, skill gaps, and age filters. We are not minimising that pain. We are insisting that policymakers and headline writers hold both numbers in view so responses target retraining and placement, not stimulus pitched as if Singapore were sliding toward mass unemployment.
The strongest objection—and its limit
Critics note that vacancy totals are surveys, that small firms are imputed, and that falling openings in finance may be the canary for wider white-collar softness. Fair enough: the ratio slid from pandemic highs and could keep easing if global rates and deal flow stay depressed. But June’s unemployment rate for citizens was 3.0 percent—stable, not spiralling. Calling the market “loose” because retrenchments rose confuses firm-level shocks with economy-wide slack.
Another objection: vacancies can be low-quality or unrealistic. MOM’s report acknowledges composition shifts; it still shows tens of thousands of real openings employers pay to advertise. The policy question is how quickly retrenched PMETs can pivot, not whether jobs exist on paper.
What institutions should do
MOM should keep publishing sectoral retrenchment causes and pairing them with SkillsFuture pathways tied to those sectors—not generic slogans. Employers using layoffs to reset wage bands should face scrutiny under tripartite norms, especially when they re-post similar roles at lower seniority. Workforce Singapore and industry partners need faster placement for mid-career candidates cut from finance and tech, where vacancy drops are steepest.
Workers should document retrenchment benefits, activate placement support early, and resist panic moves into unrelated gig work that erodes CPF continuity. Parliament should watch whether the vacancy ratio dips below one—not because it is a magic threshold, but because it signals genuine spare capacity.
What we are not saying
This is not an editorial cheering layoffs as “efficiency.” It is an argument against treating retrenchment charts as a standalone mood index. Singapore’s labour market in mid-2026 is tight-with-friction: more cuts, fewer finance ads, still more jobs than jobseekers at the macro level. Governing that reality requires surgical placement policy, not doom-laden narratives that scare households into deferring warranted spending—or, worse, let agencies postpone retrenchment support because the topline unemployment rate looks calm. The mechanism to watch is the vacancy-to-unemployed ratio published quarterly by MOM; retrenchments are the human cost inside that equation, and both belong on the front page.
