WP proposes wage subsidies for hiring new grads in apprenticeships amid AI concerns

SINGAPORE – The Workers’ Party is proposing temporary wage subsidies for companies that hire fresh graduates for apprenticeships, as it is concerned that the number of entry-level professional roles will be limited in the push to adopt artificial intelligence.

In his Labour Day message published online on April 30, WP chief Pritam Singh said the rapid proliferation of generative and agentic AI will play an increasingly larger role at workplaces. This ongoing transformation of the labour market requires more proactive policies to support workers, he added.

While the Government invests boldly in AI transformation, the country has to be equally deliberate in ensuring no one is left behind, he said. The contributions from skilled tradespeople, who remain the backbone of Singapore’s economy, “must continue to be valued, protected, and strengthened in this new era”.

Mr Singh said: “We are particularly concerned by a trend where professional roles for new graduates are being curtailed due to an expectation that AI can perform many entry-level functions at a lower cost.

“This is a self-defeating approach.”

He said that if young graduate workers are not able to gain the necessary work experience, Singapore will never develop the reservoir of experienced professionals that its economy requires.

“Fresh graduates need stronger support to get past the taxiway and onto the runway. We need to give our youth more pathways to attain real experience, confidence, and foundations for the future,” Mr Singh added.

On the party’s proposal of targeted and temporary wage subsidies to reduce the risks for companies hiring new graduates in apprenticeship roles, he said this support will better ensure that Singapore’s young people are not left behind as industries adapt to technological disruption.

Mr Singh also called for better protection for all workers, given the anxieties over potential displacement in a volatile global economy, and reiterated WP’s proposal for a redundancy insurance scheme.

The scheme had previously been rebuffed by the ruling PAP, which said a mandatory scheme would come at a financial cost to both employees and employers.

The PAP said it was better to focus support on workers who may be most in need of it after facing unemployment shocks, such as through the SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support scheme. One of the scheme’s eligibility criteria is an income cap of $5,000.

In his message, Mr Singh said the redundancy insurance scheme must extend to all income levels to “provide a meaningful cushion against financial pressure”.

He said that with restructuring exercises and retrenchments increasingly likely, WP’s proposed scheme would provide an “automatic stabiliser for the economy, ensuring that workers can sustain their families while they look for new work”.

“Moreover, if our people do not have such a strong safety net taking care of their basic needs, we cannot expect them to be innovative and risk-taking – the exact qualities we want in such a transformative era.”