SINGAPORE: For 46-year-old Steven Neo, losing his job as a senior programme manager at a global tech giant was more than a financial shock – it was a profound loss of an identity that he tied to his work.“As a dad in an Asian community, I think there are a lot of societal expectations of what a guy and a dad should be as a breadwinner,” he said, adding that he got through the initial grief at his retrenchment with the help of his wife and young daughter.Like most Singaporeans, he had been conditioned to a traditional Singaporean script.“The traditional route that Singaporeans are being educated on is you study hard, get a good degree, and then you are able to get a job,” said Mr Neo, who has a bachelor’s degree in information systems and a master's degree in business administration.
So when told in mid-2025 that he was being laid off, Mr Neo was stunned because of the lifetime of education and effort that had gone into his 25-year career.Mr Neo’s experience embodies a shift observed in retrenchment trends in recent years that is challenging long-held expectations about what gives a worker job security, said experts speaking to CNA.In the latest quarterly market data, degree holders experienced a sharply higher retrenchment incidence, rising from 2.6 to 3.1 retrenched per 1,000 resident employees – higher than those with lower educational qualifications.The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said this figure from the first quarter of 2026 suggests that company restructuring remains concentrated among higher-educated workers, reflecting ongoing restructuring in professional and knowledge-intensive sectors.Older workers in their 50s also faced a higher retrenchment incidence, rising from 2.8 to 3.1 retrenched per 1,000 resident employees – topping all age groups.
