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These skills gaps also resulted in difficulties in meeting quality standards (41.3%), alongside missed business opportunities and challenges in adapting to technological change.
Nearly a quarter of employers surveyed in Singapore (24.3%) have reported experiencing skills gaps in their workforce.
These gaps have led to increased workloads for other staff (49.9%) and difficulties in meeting quality standards (41.3%), alongside missed business opportunities and challenges in adapting to technological change, according to the Ministry of Manpower's (MOM) and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC)'s complementary study on underemployment in Singapore.
The study also found a divergence between workers’ and employers’ experiences. While a segment of workers report being in roles that do not fully utilise their qualifications, employers are still facing challenges in filling roles that require specific skills. This suggests the key issue is not excess qualifications (which was another main finding of the study, explored below), but ensuring that workers’ skillsets remain aligned with evolving job requirements.
The results also revealed that, in general, skills are rising up the priority order as employers are placing greater emphasis on skills and experience than on formal qualifications. In 2025, academic qualifications were not the primary consideration for four in five (79.6%) vacancies. Instead, employers prioritised relevant experience (48.2%) and skills and abilities (20.1%).
This suggests that differences between workers’ qualifications and job requirements do not necessarily translate into hiring disadvantages.
Notably, skills mismatches among specialised professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMET) roles have become more pronounced. The share of PMET vacancies unfilled for at least six months rose from 14.4% in 2024 to 16% in 2025, with employers reporting difficulties in filling roles requiring specialised technical expertise, such as data scientists, teaching and training professionals, and civil engineers.
Per the analysis, this indicates that hiring frictions are increasingly driven by skills specificity rather than qualification mismatches.
The findings above have been pulled from a pair of complementary studies on underemployment in Singapore by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).
Both studies utilise the framework established by the International Labour Organization (ILO) for qualification-related underemployment, also known as overqualification, i.e. situations in which the qualification level of a person in employment is higher than that required to perform the job.
Since overqualification was a consistent theme in the studies, we have highlighted other related findings below.
Overqualification is a common phenomenon in high-income countries
High‑income countries tend to have more tertiary‑educated workers and, as a result, higher overqualification rates. Despite this, the study found that Singapore’s overqualification rate remains below the high-income average (19.4% compared with 21.6%), even though a larger share of its workforce holds tertiary qualifications (up from 51.6% in 2015 to 64.0% in 2025, versus 41.2% on average in high‑income economies).
This suggests that Singapore has been able to generate enough high‑skilled jobs to support a more educated workforce, with the increase in overqualification remaining moderate and in line with international patterns.
MOM Deputy Secretary (Workforce) Kenny Tan shared his thoughts, affirmed that despite Singapore's overqualification rate being lower than that in other high-income countries, the idea remains to empower each Singaporean to access good jobs that match their human potential.
"Both workers and employers have their part to play. Education and qualifications provide a good grounding, but skills must be continuously honed.
"Workers should embrace lifelong learning and new job opportunities. Employers need to recognise that workers have different needs at different life stages. They should redesign work and workplaces to address these needs in order to attract, motivate and retain talent."
To address the above deeper, he reiterated on the formation of the new Skills and Workforce Development Agency, which will bring together training, employment facilitation and job redesign capabilities to support workers and employers.
Most overqualified workers in Singapore choose to take up their roles purposefully
About nine in ten overqualified workers (or 17.7% of the resident workforce) are in that position by choice, i.e., they are voluntarily overqualified. They take on roles below their qualification level for reasons such as flexibility, work-life balance, or transitional career choices, not because they cannot find a “suitable” job.
Only a small group (1.7%) are involuntarily overqualified, and this has stayed below 3% over the past decade, which points to limited structural mismatch in the labour market.
This pattern reflects how career decisions are changing. Workers may opt for less demanding roles, fewer working hours, or different career pathways to better align with personal priorities, including family responsibilities or interests outside of work, and to take advantage of more flexible and remote work options.
NTUC’s survey of 1,100 Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents in October 2025 points to a similar picture. The most common form of underemployment among employed respondents was education field-job mismatch (31.4%), followed by qualification-job mismatch (23%), skills-job mismatch (22.5%), and qualification-occupation mismatch (20.3%). Many of these situations are voluntary, driven by workers’ preferences for flexibility and such work arrangements.
Addressing the matter of overqualification, NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay said: “Many workers are making deliberate career decisions that prioritise flexibility, fulfilment, or life-stage needs. This reflects a labour market that offers diverse pathways rather than one that is structurally misaligned.
"A dynamic labour market must offer both flexibility and security. Against this backdrop, it is important to continue examining underemployment in Singapore, to better understand where gaps remain and how workers’ needs evolve across different life stages."
He noted that NTUC will continue working closely with tripartite partners to ensure the labour market remains flexible and inclusive.
Salaries of tertiary graduates working full-time are going up
The median gross monthly income of full-time employed tertiary graduates has increased from S$5,800 to S$7,605 over the past decade. Starting salaries of fresh graduates from local Institutes of Higher Learning have also increased over the same period.
Taken together, these trends reflect that the labour market has continued to absorb a growing pool of tertiary-educated workers, with overall employment outcomes remaining favourable.
More information on MOM and NTUC's studies on overqualification can be found here.
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