MOM clarifies findings from LinkedIn report

Majority of Singapore's top emerging roles are not “mostly held by foreigners", the Ministry of Manpower says

BY Nurhuda Syed 18 Sep 2018

Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said findings from a recent LinkedIn report on emerging jobs had been “misunderstood”.

The findings, which were reported by HRD last week, pointed out the top five fastest-growing jobs in Singapore. It also showcased that while the roles were based on tech-savviness, a lot of jobs required employees to have strong communication skills.

The report also had a section on talent migration – MOM said some have misread data about the number of foreigners in Singapore’s top tech roles.

The section showed a breakdown of LinkedIn users holding emerging jobs in Singapore, all of whom were previously based overseas.

For instance, it stated that out of the talent that migrated to Singapore for jobs, over 20% of data scientists were from India, followed by France at about 14%.

“The report shows which countries this ‘talent migration’ is from. Some people have misunderstood the LinkedIn report as saying that many or even most of the jobs are being held by foreigners,” MOM said.

According to Channel NewsAsia, LinkedIn clarified that the data cited the members’ previous location and not the nationalities of the workers who migrated to Singapore for the jobs.

Additionally, MOM said that based on a 2016 manpower survey by the Infocommunications Media Development Authority (IMDA), Singaporeans make up more than 70% of employees in the roles identified by LinkedIn.