⚖️ A job? In this economy?
You’re not imagining things – Singapore’s job market is not looking pretty these days. According to the labour market report for the first quarter of 2024, unemployment rates edged up slightly with 3.1 per cent of Singapore citizens unemployed as of March.
Meanwhile, employment growth cooled as it grew at a slower pace compared with preceding quarters.
“It is clear that the employment market is softening, with employment rates and full-time employment rates falling from 2022 to 2023,” says Associate Professor Walter Theseira of the Singapore University of Social Sciences. “While salaries are staying the same or even rising slightly, it is increasingly difficult to get a full-time job.”
Fresh graduates such as Jethro Ong, 25, a final-year student at Singapore Management University (SMU) specialising in information systems, are feeling the heat. He tells thrive that applying for jobs over the past six months has been a demoralising experience.
He was confident that he had done enough while in university to comfortably secure a job offer before graduating. However, he received only one call-up for an interview after sending out countless job applications for five months. “I started second-guessing all the work I put in during university, and became bitter and angry in the process,” Ong shares.
According to Ong, the job hunt continued to look bleak for many other final-year SMU students – even at the beginning of their last semester. While things have improved for some of his friends since March, many are still seeking employment.
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🌏 Not the end of the world
While such labour market conditions have shown that fresh graduates are in for a gritty job-hunting season, not all industries are floundering. The net employment outlook (NEO) for financials and real estate sectors is at 45 per cent for the second quarter of 2024, up 6 per cent from the previous quarter, according to ManpowerGroup’s recent survey. This score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of employers who anticipate reductions in staff from those who plan to hire. Meanwhile, the NEO of consumer goods and services is at 17 per cent, and communication services have an NEO of -29 per cent (yikes).
On a brighter note, salaries remain stable and are keeping pace with inflation as seen in data from the last two years, according to Prof Theseira.
“Labour market weakness tends to show up in a reluctance to hire rather than in reduction of wages,” he explains. “It may be harder to land the job that you want, but if you get it, the compensation and benefits that come with it should be similar.”
According to the 2024 Hays Asia Salary Guide, 37.7 per cent of employers in Singapore plan to pay raises of between 3 to 6 per cent, up from 33.2 per cent the year before.
💼 A ‘good job’ is better than no job
It’s natural to aim for your dream job with a great salary and many other perks. But if the industry you want to enter is facing a slowdown, why not scout adjacent sectors for opportunities to gain some valuable work experience while also getting paid decently?
“The search for a job right now should be for a ‘good’ job, not necessarily a ‘perfect’ job, so avoid bean-counting things like pay or work-from-home frequency,” says Eugene Tan, Associate Professor of Law at SMU. “A good job is one where someone out in the workforce for the first time will have the opportunities to learn, grow, and be sufficiently challenged.”
According to LinkedIn’s latest Career Starter report, some of the fastest-growing industries for fresh graduates in Singapore include government administration, education and financial services. These areas could give you a good headstart in your career, even if they aren’t your top picks for a first job. It will be helpful to evaluate how your current experiences and what you’re studying can tie in with industries that are actively hiring, and market yourself accordingly.
Still at your wit’s end in your job search? We assume you’ve scoured many job portals and are exhausted, so here are more tips 🗒️ that will hopefully ease this process for you:
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Pick up other employable skills in the process. Sitting around waiting for your prospective employers to get back to you is a waste of time. Instead, consider taking a course – through SkillsFuture or via online learning platforms like Coursera or DataCamp – to maximise your free time by learning skills. This can also demonstrate your initiative to potential future employers.
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Put yourself out there. When you’re looking for a job, this is not the time to be shy. You may want to seek out a career counsellor to help you refine your search. They may be able to offer you some insight as to why you are stuck in your search for work. Also, don’t hesitate to reach out to family and friends – they may know someone in the field that you are interested in who can help you get that job you want.
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Keep up to date with current trends. Jump on that AI bandwagon if you must. Apparently, 71 per cent of leaders in Singapore say they will not hire someone without AI skills 😲, according to LinkedIn’s 2024 Work Trend Index released jointly with Microsoft. Learning some key skills in this growing field, or even broadening your knowledge of this area could be advantageous. Keeping career trends in mind as you seek out your next role will widen your pool of opportunities.
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Be patient. Difficult, but essential. This will keep you level-headed as you press on in your search for your first job. Suffering sleepless nights over a job market that you have no control over isn’t worth it. What matters is making the best out of your current situation and how you plan to make yourself more employable along the way.
While the current job market isn’t a “boom town”, there should be no reason for despair, says SMU’s Tan. Rather, job seekers should demonstrate attributes such as “hunger” and the desire to learn to give them an edge.
Ultimately, whether the job market is good or bad, what counts is the willingness of fresh graduates to take on new challenges and be agile in a workforce with evolving demands. You got this, Gen Zs!
TL;DR
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Singapore’s job market is looking tough for the 2024 batch of graduates, with many still on the lookout for their first full-time position 🥵
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However, salaries and other compensation benefits continue to be promising these days
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Be strategic in your job applications and open-minded to exploring other sectors of interest that could be hiring more aggressively
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There’s no point worrying about a job market you have no control over – focus on building tangible skills to become more career-ready so you can excel at your first job 🏆