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Skills development, mid-career PME support, and more — six leaders tell Umairah Nasir what they hope, or expect, to see in Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s upcoming Budget.
With Budget 2026 scheduled for 12 February (Thursday), HR and business leaders are watching closely for measures that could influence Singapore’s workforce this year. Rising business costs, shifting skills demands, and talent shortages mean companies are looking for practical support that helps both employees and employers.
To capture these perspectives, Umairah Nasir spoke to HR leaders about the manpower moves they hope to see in Budget 2026. From initiatives that strengthen workforce skills to opportunities that span different sectors and career stages, here’s what six leaders in the industry are hoping for.
Avik Ghosh, HR Head – Asia, Keva – Fragrances, Flavours & Aroma Ingredient
Singapore has built deep strength in engineering, chemistry, materials science, food science, and chemical biology, supported by one of the highest public R&D investments in Asia.
The next opportunity lies in what happens after the lab. In formulation-led areas like food, flavour, and fragrance, translating good science into products that can be made and scaled still takes time.
For Budget 2026, a practical step would be to reduce the personal and commercial risk of moving scientific talent into industry — through more applied, industry-embedded roles and clearer pilot-to-plant pathways. This would help companies move faster and make fuller use of the science already in the system.
Jack Ang, Head of People, Lucence Singapore
One manpower move I hope to see in Singapore’s Budget 2026 is a structured public–private attachment pathway for Singaporeans across health services roles.
Demand is rising across hospitals, community care, diagnostics, and health services, yet organisations are often competing for the same limited talent pool. A national programme that enables funded attachments — allowing Singaporeans to train and rotate between public institutions and private providers — would broaden exposure, accelerate skills transfer, and create more sustainable career pathways.
For companies, this builds a stronger, job-ready local workforce and shortens time-to-productivity without each employer carrying the full training risk. For the system, it improves mobility, resilience, and continuity across the health services ecosystem as demand continues to grow.
Tan Toi Chia, Chief of People, Organisation and Communications, StarHub
As organisations digitise at scale, one of the most important shifts is extending digital and AI skills beyond specialists to frontline, service and corporate teams. At StarHub, where technology directly shapes how customers experience us, learning can’t sit on the sidelines — it has to be part of everyday work. When people feel confident to rethink how work gets done, not just learn new tools, teams deliver better outcomes, improve service quality and grow into evolving roles.
For organisations, this builds resilience, lifts productivity and supports sustainable, long-term growth.
Pauline Loo, SVP HR & Regional Hub Head of HR, Nippon Sanso Holdings Corporation
I hope Budget 2026 makes a bold push to co-fund employer-led reskilling of mid-career PMEs, especially into AI enabled roles. This would help companies manage rising manpower costs while unlocking productivity, and give experienced professionals a credible pathway to remain relevant and employable in an AI driven economy.
Today, many companies face twin challenges: escalating manpower costs; and a growing mismatch between existing skills and the AI enabled roles needed for the future. Mid-career PMEs sit at the centre of this tension. They have deep institutional knowledge and leadership potential, but without targeted support, they risk being priced out of transformation efforts or left behind by rapid technological change.
Budget 2026 should therefore go beyond training subsidies and provide meaningful wage support, reskilling grants and productivity offsets for employers who redesign roles, reskill mid-career PMEs into AI-adjacent and higher value positions, and retain them through the transition. This reduces the short-term cost burden on companies while accelerating long term productivity gains.
For employers, this approach helps manage manpower cost pressures by shifting the focus from headcount growth to value creation per employee. For the workforce, it sends a strong signal that AI adoption is not about displacement, but about upgrading jobs and careers.
Done well, this move would strengthen Singapore’s economic resilience by anchoring experienced talent within companies, building real AI capabilities at scale, and ensuring that transformation is inclusive, commercially viable, and sustainable.
Sandip Kaur Bhandal, Global Employer Services Partner, Deloitte Singapore
Note: Sandip's response reflects what she expects to see, and not what she would like to see.
A few areas where the government may act include:
- Modest refinements to existing policy levers
Rather than broad expansions of foreign manpower quotas or a blanket liberalisation, the focus is likely to be on pragmatic adjustments such as moderating the pace of qualifying salary threshold increases, sector-specific allowances or flexibility for high-impact roles. These would enable employers to access the right talent while maintaining robust safeguards for local job opportunities.
- Continued emphasis on economic alignment
Budget 2026 is likely to reinforce the message that access to foreign manpower should not be seen primarily as a substitute for local labour, but as a complement to productivity enhancements, automation, and skills development. This aligns with the government’s broader strategy of encouraging firms to automate, redesign jobs and invest in workforce upskilling, particularly for mid-career and mid-wage workers, as part of a longer-term solution to manpower constraints.
The government has repeatedly stated that Singapore’s economic competitiveness cannot be sustained by layering on more foreign labour — the focus is on transforming jobs, creating good quality local employment, and investing in automation and higher-value activities. That said, we do expect targeted flexibility for specific sectors or priority roles where there are demonstrable shortages that cannot be rapidly filled locally. For example, this could be done by enabling firms to deploy foreign workers across sectors and also by expanding the permissible source countries.
Renee Lim, Co-Founder, LFA Studio
The interior-build industry is at a critical juncture. While the sector remains robust, it’s faced with the realities of an ageing workforce and manpower crunch. The industry’s outlook hinges on how businesses bridge the gap between traditional practices and a digital-first future. My hope for Singapore Budget 2026 is the focus on enhancing productivity through tech or job redesign, such as:
- Practical workforce transformation, specifically through targeted grants that enable lean teams to concentrate on high-value execution.
- Structured skills upgrading and training for existing staff and attracting young talent.
- Digital grants for SMEs to adopt advanced tools for greater efficiency.
Images / Provided
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