Singapore’s economic growth has long been dependent on high inputs of capital and labour. For a global city state with a low fertility rate, labour continues to be the most contentious and challenging to manage. Among other reasons for this complexity, the high cost of living makes self-investment in further training challenging; while the significant influx of low-cost foreign workers, who often compete with local residents for jobs while facing vastly different economic realities, depresses wages in several sectors.

Over the past few decades we have, in our respective corporate roles, worked with companies spanning small local manufacturing firms to large multinationals. In the process, we’ve witnessed how global trends, such as trade liberalisation, the fourth industrial revolution and the advent of AI, have interacted with local ones, such as immigration and wage policies, to affect worker welfare in Singapore. We are all now facing the prospect of a world with higher tariffs and trade barriers, which could further wreak havoc on Singaporean workers.