New structural gaps are appearing in the workforce even as economy continues to grow: Ng Chee Meng - The Straits Times

Ng Chee Meng, Singapore's labour chief, said new structural gaps are appearing in the workforce even as the economy continues to grow. Speaking at the launch of a collaboration between NTUC and KPMG, he said retrenchments spiked to 4,620 in the second quarter of 2026, and that restructuring from artificial intelligence could be one factor. He set the two developments — an economy doing relatively well and a rise in retrenchments — side by side.

The NTUC and KPMG collaboration will establish a programme to help companies with workforce transformation and AI adoption, according to the report. Ng spoke at the event at which the collaboration was launched. The programme's stated focus is companies rather than individual workers. The report did not state the programme's funding, the number of companies expected to take part, which sectors it will cover, or when it will begin operating.

Ng's remarks connect the second-quarter retrenchment figures to the labour movement's work on workforce transformation as companies adopt AI. The report describes the programme as intended to help companies with that transformation and with AI adoption. It does not identify which sectors or employers accounted for the 4,620 retrenchments, nor does it quantify how much of the increase is attributed to AI rather than to other factors. It also does not define which groups of workers the "structural gaps" affect.