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Regulations to Ensure Safe Medical Practices and Science-based Treatments at Longevity-medicine Clinics The following question stood in the name of Ms Joan Pereira –
Regulations to Ensure Safe Medical Practices and Science-based Treatments at Longevity-medicine Clinics 1 To ask the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health what regulatory and enforcement measures are in place to ensure that longevity-medicine clinics adhere to safe medical practices and science-based and evidence-based treatments for the protection of clients and patients.
Regulations to Ensure Safe Medical Practices and Science-based Treatments at Longevity-medicine Clinics Question No 1.
Regulations to Ensure Safe Medical Practices and Science-based Treatments at Longevity-medicine Clinics Sir, all outpatient medical service providers, including those offering medical services associated with longevity, must be licensed and comply with the requirements under the Healthcare Services Act (HCSA).
Regulations to Ensure Safe Medical Practices and Science-based Treatments at Longevity-medicine Clinics In addition, medical practitioners are required to adhere to the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) Ethical Code and Ethical Guidelines (ECEG). Both HCSA and SMC ECEG require medical service providers and practitioners to provide only safe, rational and evidence-based medical treatments in accordance with accepted clinical practice. Where non-standard medical treatments are considered, they should only be provided in the context of a clinical study. Such studies must comply with the ethical requirements for research studies including prior approval from a local Institutional Research Board.
Regulations to Ensure Safe Medical Practices and Science-based Treatments at Longevity-medicine Clinics These services are monitored through routine inspections and compliance audits, which may also be triggered by complaints. Providers that fail to meet standards may be subject to regulatory action or enforcement measures including imprisonment and financial penalties. If the Ministry receives information that a medical practitioner has engaged in practices which are not in accordance with the SMC ECEG, the Ministry will lodge a complaint against the medical practitioner to the SMC.
Regulations to Ensure Safe Medical Practices and Science-based Treatments at Longevity-medicine Clinics The public is encouraged to discuss with their doctor on appropriate and evidence-based tests and treatments recommended in their individual circumstances, to avoid unnecessary interventions and costs. For the general population, adopting healthy lifestyle habits such as a balanced diet, adequate sleep, regular exercise and staying socially engaged remains foundational to maintaining good health.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification 2 Ms Gho Sze Kee asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry can provide an update on tripartite discussions on advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification (MRN); and (b) how does Singapore’s MRN framework compare with international peers.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification At present, firms with 10 or more employees are required to submit a mandatory retrenchment notification (MRN) to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) within five working days of notifying employees of their retrenchment.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Not all jurisdictions require employers to notify their governments when conducting retrenchments. And among those countries that do, practices vary. Some countries, like Singapore, adopt a regime where notification to the Government is made within a specified period after the employees are informed. In many other countries, employers must notify the Government a fixed number of days before the employee's last working day. So, the starting point is different.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Nevertheless, we have been able to achieve comparable outcomes. That is because employers here notify the Government shortly after informing their employees, and employees are typically informed well in advance of their last working day. In 2025, 77% of MRNs were submitted at least seven days ahead of the employee's last working day and 73% of MRNs were submitted at least two weeks ahead.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification As part of an ongoing review of the Employment Act, tripartite partners are studying how to encourage earlier notification by employers – both to affected employees and to the Government. In particular, we would like to see notification to the Government happening before or by the employee's last working day as far as possible. Because this will enable timely employment facilitation support and outplacement services for the affected employees. We will provide an update on the tripartite discussions in due course.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Mr Patrick Tay.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification I thank the Minister for sharing the response to the Parliamentary Question by the fellow Member of the House. I was wondering, and I think I have brought this up before on previous occasions, whether we can consider stricter penalties against those who do not comply, with this requirement. Because as the Minister shared earlier, there are more than 20% of companies that do not comply with the MRN requirement. So, whether MOM will consider tougher, more stringent measures, as a form of deterrence to would-be offenders.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification I thank the Member for his supplementary question. Currently, the penalty for non-compliance is an administrative penalty of $1,000 for the first contravention and $2,000 for subsequent contraventions. The Member would be happy to note that the majority – and I want to emphasise, the majority – of employers comply with the MRN requirement. In 2025, 80% of the MRNs were submitted within the five-working-day deadline. This is an improvement from the 70% in 2024.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Late submissions were often due to administrative oversight. Companies who submit MRNs late are issued with caution letters. Most of these companies have been compliant thereafter. For the recalcitrant employers, we will impose administrative penalties.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Currently, the MRN compliance rate has been high. We do not see a need to raise the penalties at this point in time. I want to emphasise, at this point in time. Nevertheless, we will review our enforcement approach and our penalties regularly. And we will work closely with our tripartite partners, and we will assess if there is a need to review and to raise the penalties.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Mr Mark Lee.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification I understand the intent behind the early notification, to better support displaced workers. I have two clarifications, if I may.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Based on past data, most workers take a few months to secure the next job. In that context, may I ask whether there is evidence that advancing notification by a short period materially improves re-employment outcomes beyond providing just earlier visibility?
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification At the same time, many employers have actually shared that restructuring decisions are often iterative and only finalised when all options to preserve jobs have been exhausted. Given these trade-offs, could the Minister elaborate on whether tripartite discussions are considering an alternative approach, one that focuses less on mandating earlier notification, but more on strengthening immediate post-notification support, such as rapid job matching, industry redeployment and place-and-train mechanism, which I believe may have more direct impact on worker outcomes?
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Mr Speaker, Sir, we do not have the exact data that the Member has requested. But we can go back, assess and check, and trawl through our available data to see whether we have such data.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification What we have is that for the last three years ending 2024 – that means 2022, 2023 and 2024 – seven in 10 retrenched workers, who have received career coaching from both Workforce Singapore and/or the Employment and Employability Institute's (e2i's) career coaches, were actually placed within six months. The median time to placement averaged around three months.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification Today, the Taskforce for Responsible Retrenchment and Employment Facilitation reaches out to all retrenched locals with available contact details to provide them with employment facilitation support. We will continue with our efforts to support all retrenched locals.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification To the Member's second point, we recognise that if we require all companies to notify the Government in advance, in some cases, that requirement could inadvertently affect our workers adversely; not to the same desired impact that we want to to help our workers with. From many accounts, many discussions that we have had with employers, during retrenchments, which is often a painful process, many companies do try to preserve as many jobs as possible through backend negotiations. So, we are conscious and we are mindful of that potential impact if we want to mandate advance notification. Because this may – and I want to emphasise that this may – push companies to finalise the retrenchments faster and therefore, discourage such backend negotiations. Our tripartite partners are indeed mindful of such concerns and they will continue to take a very careful and balanced approach in the discussions. Such discussions are still ongoing because of the review of the Employment Act.
Update on Tripartite Discussions on Advance Mandatory Retrenchment Notification I hope that gives you the reassurance that this series of discussions, even as we are now debating it, answering this Parliamentary Question in the House, at the backend, these negotiations and discussions are ongoing.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment 3 Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo asked the Minister for Manpower in view of the findings that one in five resident workers are overqualified for their roles according to a study released on 14 April 2026 (a) what are the implications for underemployment among younger workers, women and lower-income groups; and (b) what preventative measures are in place to reduce persistent mismatch and strengthen skills utilisation.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment 4 Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo asked the Minister for Manpower (a) how does the Ministry assess the impact of rising overqualification on (i) long-term career pathways and (ii) wage progression; and (b) what steps are being taken to enhance (i) job redesign, (ii) skills-based progression, and (iii) workforce readiness for future shifts in jobs and job scopes.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Mr Speaker, with your permission, I would like to address the following Parliamentary Questions on overqualification together.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment That would be Question Nos 3 and 4?
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Oral Question Nos 3 and 4, and also written questions filed by Ms Jessica Tan and Dr Wan Rizal for today's Sitting; and oral and written questions filed by Mr Yip Hon Weng1, Ms Cassandra Lee and Mr David Hoe2 for subsequent Sittings.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Please go ahead.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment I would also like to invite Mr Yip, Ms Lee and Mr Hoe to seek clarifications today, and consider withdrawing their questions filed for future Sittings if their questions have been addressed.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Mr Speaker, Sir, 19.4% of the resident workforce was overqualified in 2025. This was below the high-income countries' average of 21.6%. The vast majority of cases were voluntary. Of these overqualified, about nine in 10, or about 17.7% of the resident workforce, were voluntarily overqualified. I want to state, voluntarily overqualified. The remaining one in 10 of overqualified individuals were involuntarily overqualified.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment As Ms Jessica Tan and Mr David Hoe noted, the voluntarily overqualified could include women and caregivers who may choose roles to explore a new career direction or to better fit around their family circumstances, even if they are overqualified for those roles.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment In contrast, the involuntary overqualification rate was low at 1.7% of the resident workforce and has remained stable over the past decade.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment To Dr Wan Rizal's question, involuntarily overqualified workers tend to be younger and tertiary-educated. This is consistent with typical early career pathways where workers may initially take on roles that do not fully utilise their qualifications before transitioning into better-matched roles as they gain experience.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment The sector with the highest number of involuntarily overqualified workers was Transportation and Storage. Members are encouraged to refer to the Ministry of Manpower's (MOM's) Occasional Paper for more details.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Dr Wan Rizal and Ms Tan also asked about the impact of overqualification on longer-term career pathways. MOM currently does not track longitudinal outcomes of overqualified individuals. However, broader labour market outcomes remain favourable. If you look at the median income of full-time employed tertiary graduates over the past decade, the median incomes have risen from $5,800 to $7,600 over the 10 years, and this reflects continued wage progression.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment We remain committed to help all individuals find jobs that can meet their personal needs as well as their career aspirations. This includes helping lower-wage workers, which Ms Tan asked about, find the jobs that can better utilise their skills, as they may be in entry-level jobs that do not do so.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Mr Yip Hon Weng, Ms Cassandra Lee and Ms Tan asked about our broader strategies to reduce skills mismatches. At the pre-employment phase, the institutes of higher learning (IHLs) work closely with industry partners to equip students with industry-relevant technical competencies and skills. And beyond initial qualifications, all of our workers are encouraged to, and they must, embrace lifelong learning.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment The merger of Workforce Singapore (WSG) and SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) into the Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA) – later on today, I will be passing a Bill on that – will help our workers to do so by creating a single touchpoint for training, for career guidance and job opportunities. I do hope that Members of the House will support the Bill unanimously.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment By bringing together the capabilities of both agencies, SWDA and its tripartite partners will be able to provide personalised career and skills insights and guidance to help jobseekers find options that better match their skills and their preferences.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Efforts by SWDA and the National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC's) Employment and Employability Institute will also build on existing upskilling and reskilling programmes that support our workers. These include Career Conversion Programmes (CCPs), the Mid-Career Pathways Programme and the SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme. Female caregivers returning to work from a career break can also access career guidance and skills training through WSG's herCareer initiative.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment To address diverse needs and working arrangement preferences, MOM and tripartite partners promote a range of work and career options. This includes supporting enterprise job redesign for flexible work arrangements (FWAs) through the SkillsFuture Workforce Development Grant (Job Redesign+). Based on MOM's surveys, around 70% of firms offered FWAs in 2025, and this is up from 50% about six years earlier, in 2019.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Ms Tan.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment I thank the Minister for the reassurance and for his reply. I would like to follow up on the long-term implications, particularly around how we are measuring the effects of overqualification on career and wage trajectories. I hear the Minister that we do not collect this data today, so I would like to ask how that goes. And I also like to build on the point about future workforce readiness, especially in terms of how we track skills utilisation and progression over time.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment So, if I could ask the Minister, what indicators do the Ministry use to determine if overqualification is becoming persistent rather than transitional and what thresholds would trigger further intervention?
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment My second supplementary question is, does the Minister assess whether over qualification today may reduce readiness from emerging roles tomorrow and how is this risk being mitigated? Because overqualifications can depress wage trajectories, weaken skills utilisation and reduce long-term workforce competitiveness.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment So, if the Minister can share how the Ministry tracks long-term wage career progression outcomes for workers, especially for younger graduates who remain overqualified for extended periods, and how these insights are being used to strengthen job redesign and skills-based progression efforts across sectors.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment I thank Ms Tan for her very insightful four or five questions. Sorry if I miscounted them.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment We have just started publishing this data because this particular indicator itself on overqualification, based on what we are doing, with regard to the data, it is actually quite new. We were able to derive these statistics using occupation and education data, which is captured from our annual labour workforce surveys, enabling us to determine whether a worker possesses educational qualifications that are higher than the typical requirements of a job. Because up till now, based on even international published statistics, underemployment data typically use a time-related measure, and today, the time-related measure still remains the only internationally accepted statistical definition of underemployment and as a proxy, overqualification.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment So, we are starting, we will continue to monitor the trends over a longer time horizon. How do we measure success? We will, first and foremost, of course, focus on more of the macroeconomic data pertaining to our gross domestic product (GDP) growth and also, our median wages.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Today, hopefully with your support, with the formation of the new SWDA and the passage of the Bill later on this afternoon, we will focus on initially very targeted groups – the fresh graduates, the mid-career workers, to the elderly workers, and on top of that, also for caregivers returning to work.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment With the different interventions across the different cohorts, segments and sectors, we would be able to, in time, track this data better and provide regular updates to this House. At the moment, even this publication of this Occasional Paper, we actually work with the International Labour Organization and we also work with the Labour Movement to triangulate the data sets.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment We believe that, with the passage of time, we are also using – it is not a buzzword, but we are indeed using artificial intelligence at the different level of data analytics and triangulation, to allow us to work closely with our businesses and with the employers across different sectors, starting with those areas that we are more familiar with, to be able to better tweak and refine our policies to help our locals.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment I hope that gives you enough reassurance. We are starting here and we welcome ideas from Members of the House to help us to refine, improve and also to have better reach, more precise policies to reach out and uplift all of our fellow Singaporeans.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Mr David Hoe.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Minister for his response. I have two specific supplementary questions. Firstly, I would like to clarify whether MOM is looking at strengthening support for caregivers, specifically dealing with possible bias that employers might have for those who take a career break.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment I also just want to highlight this to the Minister, that stepping out for caregiving should not mean stepping down permanently. I hope the Minister can give assurance to caregivers that they will be able to assume back to their previous role, because many of these caregivers are parents with young children.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Secondly, let me address the concerns of our youths. How would MOM also assure youths that might not have many internships or less connected backgrounds, that they will not be significantly disadvantaged in a labour market that increasingly rewards early internship networks and overseas exposure, as reflected in The Straits Times article this morning?
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment I thank Mr Hoe for his first point, which is an exhortation. Indeed, I think it is precisely why we are all coming together and to see how we can reach out to more caregivers, particularly should they choose the option of coming back to work. I think the Member would appreciate that the needs of caregivers are varied and they are also very, very complex. I do not think there is a one-size-fit-all policy that would go in, flood the system and uplift everyone. I do not think that any policy can do that.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment If you just disburse in the form of a broad-based support, we may also end up not being able to get the desired outcome for those that need it the most.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment So, our approach has always been to work with different sectors, depending on the type of industry that the particular caregiver wants to come back into. And I agree with the Member: stepping out does not mean stepping back or stepping down. There will be plans to work according to the sectors, for them to have a refresh and upgrade of the skills, to retool, to reskill, so that they are ready should they choose to come back into the workforce.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment For youth internship, I indeed take note of the article today written by Ms Lin Suling in The Straits Times, it was a very long opinion editoral. But let me address one part which I think is important. Today, the statistics that were cited in the article pertain to fresh graduate employment outcomes, which indeed have softened from recent peaks. The peak was coming out from COVID-19, and everybody was rushing to fulfil backlog of orders, there was a big rush for graduates, for talent, coming on board.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment But we should not be just looking at an isolated year-by-year number. The employment rates, if you look amongst young degree holders, and let us look at that age cohort, from 25 to 29 years old, they have actually remained broadly stable – and this has been at around 90% or nine in 10 over the past decade.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment What this tells us and the article is actually quite precise in talking about fresh graduates. But I think it also demonstrates that some graduates may take longer to secure full-time roles initially. Most are able to find employment over time. So therefore, this points to a longer school-to-work transition, rather than a broad decline in graduate employment.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment And I take the Member's point with utmost importance, about the ability for our undergraduates to secure internships. What we are now actively doing is working – of course, this is before the SWDA is formed – we are actively working with our IHLs to bring attachments and exposure, with experienced volunteer career advisors, to build the networks for many of these young undergraduates while they are in-flight through our IHLs.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment We hope to strengthen that programme even more. We hope to work even more closely with the Ministry of Education with regard to career advisory services exposure. We have got quite a good measure of success with the GRaduate Industry Traineeships (GRIT) programme and I said that we have extended it this year.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment We will continue to get these insights to see how we can work, particularly in sectors that are growth sectors that have a long runway, a long career trajectory, for our undergraduates. We are going to emphasise the foremost importance of this in the next few months. I hope that gives you the reassurance.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Mr Yip Hon Weng.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for his response. I just have a very short supplementary question, which is, what additional support, besides CCP and the SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme, is available for mid-career workers who may be persistently over-qualified in their roles, especially those who have undergone reskilling, but still remain mismatched. Some suggestions would include things like hand-holding, coaching and even case management for this group of workers. I do see a lot of them at my Meet-the-People Session.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment I thank the Member for his question. Indeed, our jobs are evolving very quickly and companies are also having to keep up with that very rapid transformation of what is happening in the world economy. There is not a particular, single policy that we can introduce that would be a panacea to cover every single potential mid-career displacement.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment But what we are now doing that is an even higher step-up from what we have been doing all this while, is that, beyond just working with that potentially displaced worker or that displaced worker, we are also working with the businesses as well. This year at Budget Committee of Supply, if you recall, I introduced a step-up to the Enterprise Workforce Transformation Package with a SkillsFuture Workforce Development Grant (Job Redesign+). Through that, we not only fund workers in reskilling, upskilling, career guidance, enhancing Career Health SG, CareersFinder – many of these, I will talk about later on this afternoon – we are also funding companies to continue to press on with Job Redesign to improve their productivity through the Productivity Solutions Grant; through many of the enterprise development grants, which are disbursed by the economic agencies under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which I am also closely working for.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment So, there are multiple measures. On top of that, across different sectors, across different industries, when we get feedback, we will not hesitate to put up training programmes for those who want to seek a pivot or switch. The Infocomm Media Development Authority has the TechSkills Accelerator programme. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has a finance programme. In the biopharma sector, we have a biopharma talent track programme that allows many of them to switch, and also, programmes in healthcare.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment So, the possibilities are there. They are wide. They are varied, as long as we are able to encourage, to socialise the idea with our workforce that they are not discouraged, there will be something for everyone.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment I can go on for the whole list of the different programmes that we have available, but I think it would probably be beyond the scope of this particular Parliamentary Question session. But suffice to say that there are a lot of programmes out there. Even for myself, holding many of the different portfolios and also with the different programmes that we have, when I want to search for something during my Meet-the-People Session, I also rely on ChatGPT to navigate my own Ministry's myriad of programmes that we have.
Survey Finding of Workers Being Overqualified for Their Roles and Implications on Career and Wage Progression, and Underemployment So, I think you can envisage – it is actually a very comprehensive and a wide series of help that we have.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities The following question stood in the name of Mr Saktiandi Supaat –
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities 5 To ask the Minister for Digital Development and Information (a) what is the Government's assessment of the risks from AI models claiming to be sufficiently advanced to steal data or disrupt critical infrastructure, to Singapore's financial system and critical infrastructure; (b) whether such AI-enabled cyber risks could constitute a new class of systemic financial risk; and (c) what early-warning indicators or triggers, if any, are being developed to detect such threats.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities 6 Mr Edward Chia Bing Hui asked the Minister for Digital Development and Information in light of recent reports on frontier AI models, such as Anthropic's Mythos with advanced capabilities to autonomously identify and exploit software vulnerabilities (a) what is the Ministry's assessment of the potential cybersecurity threats posed by such models; and (b) whether the Government is reviewing Singapore's current cybersecurity frameworks and safeguards to address these emerging risks.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities Question No 5, Sir.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities Mr Speaker, Sir, my response will cover the questions raised by Mr Saktiandi Supaat and Mr Edward Chia in today's Order Paper. Can I get permission to take Question Nos 5 and 6 together, please?
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities Please proceed.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities And my reply will also address related questions from Mr Yip Hon Weng and Mr Louis Chua filed for tomorrow's Sitting. If the Members are satisfied with the response, they may wish to withdraw their questions.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities We share the Members' concerns and have been tracking these developments closely for some time.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities [Deputy Speaker (Mr Christopher de Souza) in the Chair]
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities Let me first address Mr Louis Chua's question on access. The Government does not have access to Mythos. Anthropic has released it only to a limited set of partners under a controlled preview, and we are not aware of any local bank that has been granted access. More broadly, we do not assume that we will always have early access to every frontier model. Instead, we maintain close working relationships with various partners, including major artificial intelligence (AI) labs and cybersecurity firms to track capability developments and to assess safety and security implications when new capabilities emerge. We are also working with partners who have access to Mythos to better understand its capabilities and implications.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities We should understand the advances in capabilities enabled by Mythos to be part of a continuum rather than a step change. Models like OpenAI's GPT-5.5 already show comparable cybersecurity capabilities and are more widely available. Open-source AI models are also rapidly improving and are likely to reach similar capabilities within months.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities With AI, vulnerabilities that once took expert teams weeks to detect manually can now be identified autonomously in hours, sometimes minutes. Attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities much faster than our traditional patching cycles can address.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities AI is also changing how attacks are carried out. For example, Google reported in 2025 that threat actors had used AI to develop a new class of malware. Unlike traditional malware that is hard-coded at the point of creation, the PROMPTFLUX malware was designed to consult a live AI model during attacks. The AI would rewrite portions of the malware code in real-time to evade detection.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities Another example is high-fidelity deepfake frauds. In a 2024 case, criminals used an AI-generated deepfake video call to impersonate a multinational firm's chief financial officer and trick an employee into transferring $25.6 million to fraudulent accounts. Similar attempts have been made against business executives internationally and in Singapore too. Today, voice cloning requires only seconds of audio and impersonation tools are readily available.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities These attacks are faster, more scalable and significantly more sophisticated. What we have not yet seen is fully autonomous AI agents running end-to-end campaigns. But this is a matter of time given the trajectory of technological developments.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities So, the issue is not any single model like Mythos. The underlying shift is broader and the risks are real. We are treating them with the seriousness they deserve.
Response to Risks from Frontier AI Models with Potential to Steal Data, Disrupt Critical Infrastructure and Exploit Software Vulnerabilities To Mr Saktiandi Supaat's query, we view AI-enabled cyber risk as an amplification of an existing systemic risk, rather than a wholly new category. The fundamentals to strengthen an organisation's cybersecurity matters more than ever. Therefore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has convened the chief executive officers of major financial institutions to discuss the threat landscape and drive collective action on technology and cyber resilience. Financial institutions are treating this with the seriousness it deserves and have been strengthening their posture.