Bonuses, hybrid working and more: work trends for 2025
Employees value flexible work arrangements
COMPANIES and workers are planning for the year ahead. What’s in store for the workforce in 2025? These are some trends that recruitment agencies and consultancies found from surveying companies and workers alike.
Salaries mostly set to go up 3 to 5%
Up to 43 per cent of employers plan to raise wages by 3 to 5 per cent, with 17 per cent planning for even higher increments of 5 to 10 per cent, according to Randstad’s 2025 Singapore Talent Outlook survey.
However, these increments are likely to vary across industries and skill levels, the report said. Roles that face high demand or talent scarcity – such as those in tech and digital fields – may experience above-average wage growth.
A ManpowerGroup survey of 525 employers in Singapore found that more than four in five employers in Singapore plan to increase salaries by 3 per cent or more in 2024 and 2025. That will be dependent on factors such as company performance, economic outlook, industry-specific issues and individual performance.
Larger bonuses
Eighty-nine per cent of employers in Singapore intend to award bonuses averaging over one month in 2024/2025, an increase of 5 per cent compared with 2023/2024, according to data from ManpowerGroup Singapore.
Some companies might have given drastically more than the average. Shipping giant Evergreen announced on Dec 31 that its employees would get a year-end bonus averaging 20 months of their salary, according to Taiwanese media outlets.
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More roles, headcount growth ahead
Up 49 per cent of employers in Singapore expect to see an increase in headcount for this year, according to Randstad’s survey.
That may be in the form of expanding teams within the business or setting up new offices.
Only 11 per cent of employers were set for a decrease in headcount via restructuring or downsizing within the company. The remaining 40 per cent of employers surveyed said they expected no change to headcount.
High demand for flexible work among Gen Zs
Employee values are shifting as factors beyond pay and benefits are starting to matter more.
From work-life balance and meaningful work to learning and growth opportunities, job seekers today consider a wider range of factors when it comes to employment, and firms that wish to retain and attract talent would do well to pay heed, said recruitment consultancy firm Robert Walters.
Flexible work arrangements such as remote and hybrid working models are highly valued by Singapore workers, especially among Gen Zs.
It turns out that Gen Zs in the Republic do not want to return to the office – 88 per cent of them prefer hybrid working over having to make daily office commutes, a study by International Workplace Group (IWG) that surveyed more than 1,000 Gen Z workers in the city-state found.
Over a third of these young adults found commuting to work to be a “significant economic burden” and a “time-consuming hassle”.
Some 78 per cent of Gen Z employees prefer to work from anywhere except their homes – highlighting that younger workers want flexible work arrangements, but not necessarily work from home.
Gen Z workers value having autonomy over where and how they work, with three-quarters of those surveyed believing that this is key to work-life balance.
Data from IWG revealed that job satisfaction is markedly higher among hybrid workers, as 77 per cent of these workers reported satisfaction with their jobs, compared with only 60 per cent for their counterparts who spend five days a week in the office.
Around three-fifths (61 per cent) of Gen Zs surveyed said that two to three days per week was the optimal number of days to work in the office to achieve productivity.
Talent shortages persist
The skills gap – a shortage of workers with the required skills – remains a pressing problem in Singapore, as rapid technological change has created a mismatch between employee skills and industry needs, the Randstad report found.
Two-thirds of employers cited a shortage of candidates with the necessary skills as a primary challenge for 2025, said Randstad.
While this problem is a global phenomenon that nearly three-quarters of countries surveyed in ManpowerGroup’s 2025 Global Talent Shortage reported grappling with, it is particularly acute in Singapore.
The city-state scored higher talent scarcity rates than the global average, with 83 per cent of Singapore employers reporting struggles recruiting skilled talent compared with 74 per cent of employers worldwide, the ManpowerGroup report found.
Rise of “new-collar” workers
As the shortage of skilled talent persists into 2025, “new-collar” jobs – those that require advanced, technical skills without necessarily requiring specialised degrees – may well be on the rise, according to a report in The Straits Times.
Companies are increasingly turning to “new-collar” workers with in-demand skills to plug these critical skill gaps, particularly in emerging high-tech fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, according to a Forbes article. The term “new-collar” was coined by former IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty in 2016.
As such roles prioritise skills over credentials, they allow employers to tap a wider talent pool of workers, beyond those who hold college degrees, said a Harvard Business Review piece.
Roles and sectors with the highest hiring activity
When it comes to hiring trends, 45 per cent of employers in Singapore expect that the highest hiring activity will be within sales and business development in 2025, the Randstad report found.
Demand for tech roles follow at 23 per cent, and 13 per cent of employers also expect greater hiring activity in the areas of marketing, engineering, and digital transformation and AI.
In terms of hiring across industries, Singapore businesses from the transport, automotive and logistics sectors will have the highest hiring demand for the first quarter of 2025, the ManpowerGroup survey found.
This was followed by the healthcare and life sciences sector which ranked second in employment outlook, and the financials and real estate sector which placed third.
Gen Zs prefer individual contributor roles
In navigating career progression, a rising number of Gen Zs are choosing to chart their paths forward through individual contributor positions instead of traditional middle manager roles.
This trend, known as “conscious unbossing”, comes as research shows that more than half of Gen Zs have no interest in middle management roles.
A reason for Gen Z’s reluctance to shoulder such positions of authority is that they are associated with high levels of burnout, which are at odds with Gen Z’s priorities of well-being, autonomy and flexibility.
Demand for technical skills
Some 38 per cent of employers in Singapore wish to increase the budget allocated for technical skills and roles in 2025, even as three-fifths of employers anticipate tighter corporate budgets, the Randstad report found.
This comes on the back of 40 per cent of employers aiming to reduce non-essential recruitment as part of their hiring strategy for 2025 – suggesting that companies are adopting a more judicious and selective hiring strategy with a focus on technical skills.
Notably, 30 per cent of employers surveyed also reflected the desire to focus more strongly on internal promotions.
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