Crossing the PMET divide: Can every job be a good job?

Pressure to place ever more Singaporeans into PMET jobs likely to rise; it is estimated that by 2030, about two in three of them will hold such jobs

Published Sun, Nov 22, 2020 · 09:50 PM

Singapore manpower

Singapore

MORE PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) are getting retrenched, while non-PMET jobs continue to be shunned by Singaporeans.

As such, questions have been raised about whether increasing the wages for non-PMET positions is a better solution for this dichotomy - rather than creating more PMET jobs and pushing more Singaporeans into this category of labour.

In the past decade, the share of PMETs in Singapore's workforce crossed a tipping point. As of June 2019, the majority - 56 per cent - were PMETs. This was up from 47 per cent a decade prior.

As nationally cl…