Singapore has managed to pull through in terms of unemployment rate in 2021. Due to the ongoing pandemic situation and the continued disruption to business, the unemployment rate of Singapore could have been much higher. However, effective support measures from the government has done reasonably well in ensuring unemployment did not get out of hand.
The resident unemployment rate had the potential to rise to 7.5 percent in 2021, but instead, it fell to 3.5 percent in 2021, a difference of 4 percentage points, said the Ministry of Finance (MOF). In 2020, support measures managed to shave off 2 percentage points off the projected unemployment rate, from 6.1 to 4.1 percent.
Thanks to government support, the city-state’s GDP and labor market both saw a boost, thus cushioning the blow caused by the pandemic on the economy.
Schemes like the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) for wage support, SGUnited Jobs and Skills package and Jobs Growth Incentive to promote hiring of locals, helped reduce job losses and supported residents in finding jobs and learning new skills, MOF added.
Although Singapore’s economy surpassed pre-pandemic output levels by end-2021, the rate of recovery was generally uneven across different industries. Outward-oriented sectors experienced strong growth in 2021. However, it comes as no big surprise that the aviation and tourism sector is still performing far below capacity, with only a modest recovery projected for 2022.
