Singapore’s Finance Sector To Generate Up To 4,000 Net Jobs Until 2025

SINGAPORE – The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) expects the local financial industry to generate an average of between 3,000 and 4,000 net jobs per annum from 2021 to 2025, reported The Business Times on Thursday morning (15 September, SGT).

Over the same period, the central bank also forecasted that the finance sector will grow by an average of 4 percent to 5 percent per year. This exceeds private sector economists’ forecasts that Singapore’s economy will grow by 3.5 percent in 2022 and 2.8 percent next year, based on a MAS poll of economists that was published earlier this month.

Moreover, MAS announced that the government has allocated S$400 million to fund grants in a Talent and Leaders in Finance programme in a bid to foster a “skilled and adaptable workforce”.

The grant will be overseen by the central bank’s Financial Sector Development Fund and the goal of the grant is to enable industry professionals to “take up good jobs and advance their careers”.

Areas the grants will focus on include developing specialist talent in sectors like sustainability and technology, as well as developing executives.

In addition, the central bank launched a roadmap of growth strategies for the finance industry – the new Financial Services Industry Transformation Map (ITM) 2025.

The roadmap lays out plans for the city-state to enhance capabilities and grow in areas such as philanthropy, private credit, and digital asset ecosystem, as well as sustainable and transition financing.

The latest roadmap builds upon the ITM rolled out in 2017, which focused on innovation, workforce development, and technology adoption.

Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong also revealed that the government surpassed those targets. Singapore’s financial services sector grew by an average of 5.7 percent per year from 2016 and 2020, exceeding the prior roadmap’s target of 4.3 percent. The industry also generated an average of 4,100 net jobs per year, besting the target of 3,000.

But Wong cautioned that although Singapore’s finance sector has performed well, the external environment has become more challenging and complicated.

“We are only just recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. But we don’t get to take a breather – we are now entering into a phase of elevated macroeconomic and geopolitical risks,” he said, adding that drivers such as digitalisation and technology can both transform and disrupt the financial sector.