PAP, WP take up positions with AI disruption emerging as next possible political battleground

SINGAPORE – In their Labour Day messages this year, the Government and the Workers’ Party staked out their positions on how Singapore should deal with artificial intelligence’s coming disruption to jobs.

These positions came into conflict days later during a motion on no “jobless growth” moved in Parliament by labour chief Ng Chee Meng, when the two parties disagreed on how to manage the AI transition in Singapore.

These two events made clear that labour disruption from AI is emerging as one of Singapore’s next arenas for political contestation as parties compete to have the answers for voters to deal with the coming shift.

Behind this contestation is a fundamental change in the relationship between economic growth and jobs that AI could create. In January, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said gross domestic product growth alone can no longer be counted on to generate good jobs.

The two parties have responded in different ways. The Government is building a tripartite policy response – scaling company training committees (CTCs) with the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), forming a new jobs council with employers and the unions, and merging skills agencies. The WP is proposing measures that bypass that tripartism, with individual entitlements workers can claim directly: wage subsidies for graduate apprenticeships, redundancy insurance and a “national AI equity fund”.

The political stakes are high. Professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) make up 64.2 per cent of employed Singapore residents. From 2014 to 2024, around 63 per cent of the growth in resident PMET jobs came from local-born Singaporeans.

Two groups of these workers here have received particular concern so far – fresh graduates and mid-career workers. This follows from the early effects on the job market that have been witnessed in the US, which is seen as the frontier of this disruption.

A November 2025 report by Stanford University found that early-career workers in exposed professions like software engineering experienced a 6 per cent decline in employment from late 2022 to September 2025. An August 2025 report by Goldman Sachs found that AI innovation could displace 6 per cent to 7 per cent of the US workforce if widely adopted, although that impact may be transitory as new job opportunities emerge.

Since the February Budget, the Government has laid out the bones of a national policy infrastructure for the AI transition and the guard rails around how this transition will happen here. This structure leans on tripartism – the relationship between the Government, NTUC and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF). The same trio have formed a jobs council that will double down on upskilling and job redesign.

At the NTUC May Day Rally on May 1, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong promised that the Government will “protect every worker” even though it cannot protect every job – extending his Budget pledge of no jobless growth from AI. The ruling PAP has leaned on its relationship with NTUC, and promised to scale up the labour movement’s CTCs, which bring management and worker representatives together to plan training and job redesign as businesses change.

CTCs already exist in around 3,800 companies, although only some 900 projects have been funded with their grants – meaning many committees have not tapped the funding.

The WP, in contrast, has proposed measures that largely bypass the tripartite structure – wage subsidies for graduate apprenticeships, redundancy insurance extended to all income levels, and a national AI equity fund – leaving workers with claims and protections that flow directly from national policy rather than through unions and employers.

The two parties’ approaches came into conflict at Parliament’s May sitting, where labour chief Ng Chee Meng moved a motion asking the House to affirm that Singapore needs an AI transition with no jobless growth.

Then, WP’s Gerald Giam argued for a national AI equity fund – $500 to every adult Singaporean, funded by increasing taxes on companies and raising the Net Investment Returns Contribution, with on-the-job training support for workers moving into AI-augmented roles.

The proposal was rejected by Manpower Minister Tan See Leng, who said the solution frames Singaporeans as without agency, while the Government’s plans empower them to take advantage of the new tech. Mr Giam disagreed with Dr Tan’s framing, pointing to the training element of his fund as evidence to the contrary. This exchange shows the yardstick for the two parties is different. The stakes are higher for the ruling party.

Voters will see it as the PAP Government’s responsibility to deliver the national policy response, and unemployment numbers due to AI will be closely watched, given the Prime Minister’s promises. There is no Singapore data yet on AI-related retrenchment – or indeed, productivity or salary improvements – and when these numbers come in, they will define the score.

Voters are unlikely to hold the WP responsible if its policies are not accepted by the Government and hence fail to deliver. It will, however, be expected to continue putting pressure on the Government to adopt more labour-friendly policies, and needs to continue showing its policymaking ideas have kept up with AI disruption. The opposition party has sought to advocate workers’ rights in its position outside the tripartite relationship between the Government, NTUC and SNEF.

However, NTUC is also moving to occupy this political space. The labour chief’s speech during his motion pushed the Government and employers on two policy issues: more support for the involuntarily unemployed and mandatory notifications for retrenchments before they happen.

On the second issue, the NTUC is pushing for a policy which the SNEF, its tripartite partner, has publicly aired reservations about. Dr Tan said the Government is studying both proposals.

During the motion, labour MP Yeo Wan Ling asked the Government to make NTUC the “linkway for the AI transition”. She pointed to the unions’ CTC network and employment institute as evidence that the labour movement is ready to be the “connective tissue of the AI transition” – matching workers to roles, advocating fair treatment, and “holding everyone, including itself, to account”.

The tension lies in how much NTUC can both be a conduit for the delivery of the Government’s AI policy and continue to represent workers’ interests against its other tripartite partners – including the Government – when these interests do not align. Tripartism has absorbed earlier disruptions – globalisation, the 1985 recession, Covid-19 – through negotiating shared gains from growth. AI displacement could be the first disruption where the interests of workers, employers and the state diverge sharply enough to test that mode.

If voters do not find their voices represented or their employment outcomes satisfactory amid this transition, there could be more willing ears to hear from alternative voices at the next election.

On Labour Day, hours after PM Wong spoke, an estimated 1,500 gathered at Hong Lim Park for another labour and climate rally where AI anxiety was also on the agenda. Opposition politicians from the Progress Singapore Party, Singapore Democratic Party and Red Dot United attended, and some had booths.

Beyond specific policies, the deeper competition is over how politics can answer the social and cultural questions that a breakdown in the link between growth and jobs would cause. That link has sustained Singapore for two generations. The party that finds the answers fastest will have an edge.