Fresh graduates in 2025 are facing sharper anxieties about jobs — and with good reason. In Parliament on 23 September, Manpower Minister Dr Tan See Leng presented a chart that seemed to show things were improving:
- 9,300 (52%) of 2025 graduates were employed as of June, up from 8,600 (48%) the year before.
- About 2,400 fewer were outside the labour force (taking a break or pursuing further studies).
- But this left 1,700 more unemployed graduates actively seeking work, raising competition.
At first glance, this looked like MOM was debunking the perception that graduates are struggling. But dig deeper, and the numbers don’t quite add up.
Where Did These June Numbers Come From?
Here’s what the official record says:
- The Graduate Employment Survey (GES) is jointly conducted by NTU, NUS, SMU, SIT, SUTD, and SUSS.
- It is run six months after graduates complete their final exams.
- For most universities (NTU, NUS, SMU, SUSS, SUTD from 2024), this means November of the graduation year.
- For SIT, it’s done the following March due to its academic calendar.
In short: the public release of graduate employment outcomes typically happens between January and March of the year after graduation, depending on the institution. There has never been a June release of university or polytechnic graduate data.
The June 2025 numbers presented by MOM therefore do not fit the established GES cycle.
Even for polytechnic graduates, whose GES results are usually published in January, there is no precedent for a June dataset. MOM’s chart therefore rests on a methodology that has never been disclosed publicly.
MOM’s Own Surveys Don’t Explain It
This raises a deeper issue. MOM already runs a set of core surveys:
- Comprehensive Labour Force Survey and Monthly Labour Force Survey — which capture employment, unemployment, and demographics, but not fresh graduate outcomes.
- Labour Market Survey — which covers retrenchments, vacancies, and labour turnover at company level.
- Occupational Employment Dataset — which collects payroll and occupational data from companies, potentially capturing graduate workers indirectly but not designed to measure graduate outcomes.
None of these are dedicated graduate-tracking surveys.
Yet on 22 September 2025, MOM’s Manpower Research & Statistics Department published a new release titled “Labour market outcomes of fresh university graduates.”
It compared the June 2025 cohort to June 2024 — even though no equivalent release was made in Sept 2024. This means MOM either created a new statistical product this year or retroactively compiled June 2024 data for comparison.
Without disclosing methodology, it remains unclear:
- how “fresh graduate” was defined,
- whether Singaporean citizens were reported separately from PRs,
- and how this new series relates to the long-established GES.
Labour Market Reports Paint a Different Picture
When placed alongside MOM’s Labour Market Reports, the contradictions grow:
- 1Q 2025: total employment growth slowed to +2,400 (residents +300). Unemployment ticked up (residents 2.9%, citizens 3.1%). Resident employment fell in Professional Services and Information & Communications — both graduate-heavy sectors.
- 2Q 2025: jobs rebounded (+10,400, residents +2,600), but vacancies fell from 81,100 (Mar) to 76,900 (Jun), with the vacancy-to-unemployed ratio narrowing to 1.35. Retrenchments stayed steady but rose in ICT and finance. Youth unemployment also inched up to 5.7%.
These are hardly catastrophic, but they show slowing demand in graduate-heavy industries and tighter competition — realities that no neat chart can paper over.
Why This Matters
Dr Tan’s framing sidesteps three crucial issues:
1. Citizens vs. Residents
The chart itself referred to “fresh resident graduates” — a category that combines both Singapore citizens and permanent residents.
But in Parliament, the interest was clearly focused on Singaporean graduates, since MPs were raising concerns about how young Singaporeans are faring in the job market.
By reporting only the aggregated “resident” figure, MOM’s answer leaves it unclear whether the situation for citizens specifically matches the rosier picture painted in the handout.
2. Methodological shift
The June snapshot has never been part of official graduate employment reporting. The established benchmark is the GES in November.
The new “Labour market outcomes” release on 22 September is not part of MOM’s core surveys and has no precedent in 2024 and the years prior. Without transparency, it is impossible to know how the June numbers were derived or whether they are comparable to previous years.
3. Headline vs. structure
The claim of “more graduates employed” in June misses the bigger labour market picture. MOM’s own quarterly reports show falling vacancies, sectoral weakness in Professional Services and ICT, and youth unemployment rising to 5.7%.
These structural signals matter more than a one-off June chart, because they shape whether graduates can secure quality jobs in the months ahead.
What MOM Should Do
If the Ministry wants to reassure graduates credibly, it should:
- Publish citizen-only employment outcomes.
- Provide sectoral and contract-type breakdowns for fresh grads.
- Disclose the methodology behind the June numbers, and clarify how (if at all) they align with the official GES.
Until then, the claim that “9,300 grads are employed” may soothe headlines but does little to calm Singaporeans who see the broader labour market cooling, competition intensifying, and official statistics delivered on a basis that does not match long-standing practice.
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