As unemployment improves, focus on underemployment as well

THE job market ended 2022 with a flourish in many markets – Singapore, for example, ended the year with a record 227,800 more workers employed, surpassing the pre-pandemic 2019 numbers by about 3 per cent.

But as the effects of the pandemic begin to wane, the Asia Pacific region is facing new challenges from global financial tightening and a projected slowdown in external demand. Job security remains a top concern for many people, particularly among the Gen Z and millennial population.

While the numbers show declining unemployment, there is a larger and, with the fiscal tightening, potentially looming issue of underemployment that is getting little to no attention. Underemployment is a measure of the total number of people who are unwillingly working in low-skill and low-paying jobs or only part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs that use their skills and abilities. This represents the talents and aspirations of millions of people in our region going to waste, with cost to both individuals and economies.