Treating job hugging as a passing morale issue would leave workers and firms underprepared for the economy Singapore is already becoming.
Singapore’s bout of “job hugging” – resignation rates at multi‑year lows, average tenure near eight years, and two‑thirds of workers saying their roles fall short of expectations – is more than a morale issue. It signals that Singapore’s predominantly GDP‑driven, headquarters‑centric growth model appears to be nearing its limits, and that a more outward‑embedded, income‑from‑abroad model is beginning to emerge.
Unless employers, workers, and the state adjust to this shift, job hugging is likely to harden into a broader economic drag.
The underlying pattern seems straightforward: Unemployment remains low, but labour‑force participation is easing with ageing, and surveys show early disillusionment and slower job moves. Multinationals are adding regional HQ capacity more cautiously than in earlier phases, the domestic corporate pyramid is narrowing, and for many workers, staying put now functions as a hedge against uncertainty rather than a sign of complacency.
But if job hugging is read as a structural signal, the answer cannot be oversimplified to what recent commentary calls “open dialogue and flexibility” between bosses and staff. The strategic question is, how firms, workers and the state should orient themselves in an economy where growth is likely to depend as much on investments abroad as on the production base at home, and where regional HQ‑led expansion can no longer be taken for granted.
Firms: From exports to participation
Singaporean enterprises have been told for decades to internationalize. In practice, that has often meant selling into foreign markets from a safe base at home rather than embedding inside them.
The next phase demands something more ambitious: Participating directly in the production systems of major economies, particularly the United States, key Asian markets, and elsewhere, so that Singapore‑generated value shows up in recurring income streams, not just sporadic orders.
The policy scaffolding is already in place. Tax deductions for internationalisation, market‑readiness grants, co‑investment vehicles, and investor programmes all lower the cost and risk of outward expansion. The Global Innovation Alliance offers soft‑landing infrastructure in technology and innovation hubs from San Francisco to Berlin and Ho Chi Minh City.
Yet these instruments were largely designed for a first generation of market entry. They now need to be refreshed for long‑term ventures, joint operations, and strategic minority stakes in manufacturing, renewable energy, logistics, and data infrastructure.
This “participation model” points to a shift that other advanced economies have already lived through. In Japan and South Korea, outward foreign direct investment became a major growth engine once capital allocations at home – building more local factories and offices – started to yield lower returns. Instead of relying mainly on exports produced in Tokyo or Busan, their firms built plants, logistics networks, and joint ventures overseas, then earned a growing share of national income from profits, dividends, and fees generated in those foreign operations. Over time, those external earnings helped stabilize growth and supported higher living standards even as home markets aged and domestic investment moderated.
As a matter of fact, Singapore has already shown that a shift from exports to deeper participation can work. Decades of government‑to‑government projects in China – from the Suzhou Industrial Park and Tianjin Eco‑city to the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative – have created channels for Singaporean capital, know‑how, and standards to plug directly into Chinese development priorities, reinforced by a growing web of local partnerships.
Today, Singapore’s stock of direct investment overseas has more than doubled over the past decade to more than S$1.5 trillion. That points to a future in which a larger share of national income could come from returns on assets and capabilities deployed in other major economies, rather than only from goods and services shipped out of the city‑state. Strengthening this external economic engine is therefore one of the few credible ways to sustain national income growth as headquarters hiring slows and supply chains face rising geopolitical risk.
Workers: Careers across borders
The domestic job ladder is getting shorter. Even with serious investment in reskilling, the number of high‑status roles anchored solely in Singapore is unlikely to expand at the rate it once did, as firms move towards leaner cores and more project‑based talent models.
Workers too sense this tightening – hence the paradox of job hugging alongside “quiet churn”, in which people stay put while constantly scanning for better options. Therefore, policy has to change the lived experience of mobility, not just the rhetoric around it.
Fortunately, Singapore already has the foundations: SkillsFuture for lifelong learning, overseas attachment schemes for young talent, and targeted programmes to deepen specialist capabilities.
What is missing is an explicit focus on cross‑border careers – the rotational, hybrid, or overseas‑anchored roles that now define progression in many multinational systems.
For workers, the shift is psychological as much as technical. External stints must be seen not as risky detours but as mainstream career arcs. That implies more portable professional recognition, dual‑market certification pathways, and stronger incentives for firms to sponsor multi‑year overseas deployments in advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, renewable energy, and digital infrastructure.
Once overseas roles are viable and valued, job hugging for our workers ceases to be the only rational defensive strategy and becomes one choice among many.
State: Structural realities and Smart Nation 2.0
Singapore’s edge has never been about cheap labour or land. It has been about building institutions – ports and airports, industrial parks, trade and digital-economy agreements, and regulatory regimes – that keep a small city-state globally relevant.
The next chapter will be harder. It requires enabling Singaporean firms and workers to operate inside the production and innovation systems of other economies, even when those systems diverge sharply from the rhythms of home.
At the same time, Singapore must turn its own AI and data capabilities into an exportable production base. Smart Nation 2.0 and the refreshed National AI Strategy already point the way, emphasising trusted digital infrastructure, interoperable data frameworks, and specialized talent. As Sutowo Wong, Temus’ Head of AI & Data, argues, competitiveness in the coming decade will hinge on whether Singapore can industrialize AI and data – building robust infrastructure, governance, and deployment talent from the outset. A stronger home base for this digital-era production allows Singaporean teams to sit at the centre of regional platforms as genuine partners rather than peripheral vendors.
Statecraft matters just as much. Singapore has spent decades managing concentration risk for stakeholders, drawing global physical and digital flows through its ports, airports, data centers, and submarine cables. That connectivity makes diversification and resilience part of the national value proposition. Updating the industrial-park playbook for a more fragmented era means dispersing and hardening capacity across the island and into a broader “Singapore-plus” network. That includes regional green-energy corridors and power-grid links, trusted-data zones, shared digital-infrastructure arrangements, and deeper supply-chain partnerships with like-minded economies, all protected by Singapore’s own multi-domain capabilities and the cyber defence of these critical systems.
Because only the state can build and sustain these foundations, it must be adept at deploying the right grants and training credits, and at maintaining the broader economic architecture in which outbound careers become feasible and rewarding. A Smart Nation 2.0-ready production base at home, paired with structured pathways abroad, will ultimately determine where Singaporean firms can operate – and where Singaporeans can build internationally competitive careers.
Being upfront about job hugging – and the transition ahead
Seen in this light, job hugging is not about laziness or fragile expectations. It is a rational response to a world where the old promise of linear, locally bounded careers is giving way to a more distributed and international model of work. Treating it as a structural signal means acknowledging that shift.
A recent Straits Times interview with US ambassador Anjani Kumar Sinha underscored this trajectory. Washington’s economic rebalancing is framed as a call for deeper, more reciprocal ties with partners such as Singapore, with emphasis on investment and production rather than just market access. The message is clear: Singaporean firms are expected not only to sell into America’s evolving production systems but, where viable, to invest within them.
For a small state, this transition can be an opportunity rather than a constraint. Companies that anchor themselves abroad can capture value from multiple markets. Workers who build portable skills and careers across borders insure themselves against domestic churn. And the state’s job is to reinforce Singapore’s AI and data-production base under Smart Nation 2.0 while constructing the channels through which income, ideas, and influence return home.
The alternative is to misread job hugging as a short-term morale problem and respond with managerial fixes. That would leave workers and firms unprepared for the economy Singapore is already becoming.
Marcus Loh is the Chairman of the Public Affairs Group at the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) Asia Pacific and a Director at Temus, a Singapore-based digital services firm. Formerly the President of the Institute of Public Relations of Singapore, he helped strengthen the role of strategic communication and public affairs amid shifting policy, technological, and geoeconomic landscapes. He is currently an MA candidate at the War Studies Department of King’s College London.
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As Singaporeans live longer and healthier, our careers must too