Singapore job postings hit 7-month high as AI demand surges: jobs site Indeed

[SINGAPORE] Job postings on employment website Indeed rose for a third consecutive month in January, signalling a potential turning point for the labour market after a year of cooling.While postings in January were down 11.3 per cent year on year, they reached their highest level since June 2025, a report by Indeed last Wednesday (Mar 4) showed.Despite the year-on-year drop, Indeed described Singapore’s job market as “incredibly tight”, indicating that demand for labour remains high relative to the available workforce. The yearly decline instead largely reflects a normalisation from the post-pandemic hiring boom, it said. Indeed also noted that while vacancy levels have fallen 43 per cent from their peak in July 2022, they remain “sufficiently high to keep the unemployment rate low”, sitting 38 per cent above pre-pandemic levels.Broad-based recoveryThe recovery in recent months has been widespread, with postings on Indeed rising in nearly 60 per cent of occupational categories over the past three months. Leading the charge were social science roles, which jumped 26 per cent from October 2025, followed closely by IT infrastructure at 25 per cent and software development at 23 per cent. Demand also remained robust in healthcare and lifestyle sectors, relative to historical norms. Postings for pharmacy roles more than doubled, rising 151 per cent from pre-pandemic levels; hospitality and tourism postings were up 121 per cent. Not all sectors shared the momentum. Childcare roles slumped 34 per cent in the last three months, and civil engineering recorded a 14 per cent decline. AI adoption outpaces peersBeyond the headcount numbers, Indeed highlighted a shift in the skills that are in demand. In January, 23 per cent of all Singapore postings on the job portal mentioned artificial intelligence (AI), nearly double the year-ago figure of 12 per cent. Singapore last week announced a new National AI Impact Programme aimed at making 100,000 workers more fluent in applying AI. The initiative is set to build upon the country’s National AI Strategy 2.0.Indeed noted that the Republic’s adoption of AI technologies has been “rapid compared to its global peers”, adding that this “reflects Singapore’s status as a tech hub in the Asia-Pacific region”.While other markets also booked growth in AI roles, the share of postings that mentioned AI in Singapore was significantly higher than that in major Western markets. The figure stood at about 5 per cent in the US and 7 per cent in the UK.About two-thirds of data and analytics postings on Indeed mentioned AI. The website noted that usage has become “more broad-based”, with 53 per cent of occupational categories having at least 10 per cent of job postings mentioning AI, from 27 per cent a year ago.Indeed said the rising demand for AI-related skills “does not appear to have impacted job creation”, despite fears of displacement. It added that job posting trends were similar across occupations, regardless of whether they had high or low exposure to AI tools. Indeed expects hiring activity to continue moderating in 2026 as the market normalises.A separate survey by ManpowerGroup released on Tuesday also showed that hiring sentiment across employers in Singapore rose for the second quarter of 2026, after two consecutive quarters of declines.Still, the effects of an improving market may not have been felt by the latest batch of university graduates. Results from the latest graduate employment survey released separately on Thursday showed that 74.4 per cent of graduates secured full-time positions in 2025, down from 79.4 per cent in 2024. The share of graduates who applied for jobs but did not get any offers rose to 8.5 per cent, from 5.7 per cent in 2024 and 4.1 per cent in 2023. Singapore’s six autonomous universities attributed this to job vacancies moderating from the post-pandemic peak.