Singapore Q3 job outlook: Who’s hiring? Opportunities, risks & forecasts amid Trump tariffs.

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While the global economic situation remains uncertain following the international trade war started by Donald Trump in April, we now have some data to gauge the anticipated impact it might have on the labour market in Singapore in the coming quarter.

Here’s a compilation of findings from several sources, showing mixed signals and discrepancies between predicted behaviour and real hiring activity.

Let’s start with ManpowerGroup, which has just released its quarterly employment outlook survey for Singapore, reviewing hiring sentiments among employers divided into nine broad categories:

Their methodology is simple: For each quarter, the authors collect responses from over 40,000 employers in 42 countries, measuring the intent to hire against the plans to reduce employment. The net result, positive or negative, shows the direction in the entire labour market as well as in each specific industry.

Stability despite instability

The survey by ManpowerGroup was carried out between April 1 and 30, at the height of trade tensions, when Trump announced his reciprocal tariffs on the world and ratcheted up pressure on China, leading to a de facto trade freeze between the two.

Despite these violent jolts, Net Employment Outlook ahead of this Q3 is actually better than it was last year: 24% vs. just 20% in 2024.

The bump in the metric is mostly thanks to a 5 percentage point drop in the share of employers anticipating layoffs—from 24% to 19%—while those expecting hiring to continue dipping by just one point.

If anything, then, this suggests greater employment stability for those already with a job, which is a welcome development given the general instability that Trump’s presidency has appeared to unleash on a trade-dependent country such as Singapore.

Longer-term trends suggest that hiring sentiments have, indeed, stabilised, following pandemic dips and post-pandemic bounce-back across 2022 and 2023. The figures for 2025 appear to be comparable, if not slightly better, than those for 2024.

However, not everything is rosy, as nearly 70% of Singapore employers consider the trade headwinds a significant factor in shaping their hiring decisions.

Moreover, those who are planning cuts point to economic challenges and market shifts as the main drivers of retrenchments. Not everybody is left unscathed by the unpredictable global situation, it seems.

Industry-level data

Unlike in most previous reports, this time all sectors report positive hiring sentiments, but the highest share of organisations looking to hire (over those planning layoffs) is in Healthcare and Life Sciences, followed by IT and Logistics.

Those in engineering roles should look forward to more opportunities, according to data provided by the hiring portal Indeed, as demand for technical roles has jumped significantly from February.

Civil engineering job postings have increased by almost 19%, ahead of mechanical and industrial engineering roles with 14% and 6.5% respectively.

Narrowing choice

While it seems we have mostly good news here, it’s important to note that while hiring sentiments may look optimistic, the number of opportunities is consistently going down across the board.

In other words, even if companies are looking to hire, they are offering fewer openings than before.

Indeed’s survey registered a fifth consecutive monthly decline of offers (by 0.9% this time), while a similar report from a competing portal, Foundit (formerly Monster), appears to be corroborating the data.

According to figures from the platform, hiring activity (online, but that’s where most of the hiring is taking place these days anyway) is down by 14% compared to last year.

The deepest annual drops were reported in the Banking, Finance & Insurance sector, which fell by 15%, while only Education recorded a modest increase:

Of course, each of these reports has its limitations and should not be understood as an absolute picture of the labour market. It’s only when we combine different sources of information that a more detailed picture emerges.

Hiring in Singapore appears to be gradually slowing down, but we have to bear in mind that this comes after a period of post-pandemic rebound. What matters is that hiring sentiments remain positive, even if there are fewer opportunities to choose from.

And that’s a very good sign in the uncertain times of political conflicts in a country that depends on international free trade more than any other.

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