More women in Singapore return to the workplace

While the number of female workers has continued to rise, about 260,000 women aged 25 to 64 remain outside the labour force.
By: | June 13, 2022
Topics: DE&I | Health and Wellness | News | Singapore

Since 2019, over 68,000 women in Singapore have returned to work as the country continues to step up efforts to support women who want to go back to work.

As of 2020, the number of women working reached 61.2% in Singapore, although about 260,000 women aged 25 to 64 remain outside the labour force.

Gan Siow Huang, Minister of State for Manpower, Singapore, said, “We hope that in the next 10 to 20 years we will be able to see more women coming back; but we should also at the same time recognise that, at the end of the day, we have to respect women’s choices.”

Supporting women returning to the workplace has been several labour initiatives provided by the likes of the National Trade Union Congress and Workforce Singapore (WSG), a statutory board under Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower.

READ: Building workforce resiliency key for Singapore

WSG for instance, has recently launched herCareer, a dedicated platform that houses programmes and information for job-seeking women, and includes support like job matching trials, career conversion training and placement, and job search guidance and job attachments for women.

The herCareer initiative, said WSG, is in line with Singapore’s white paper on women’s development, which “called for a whole-of-society effort” to advance their development.