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Quietly cautious: a third of Singapore SMEs have paused hiring for the second half of the year
A new survey of small and mid-sized employers points to a wait-and-see mood — not retrenchments, but a freeze, as bosses watch costs, demand and the AI question all at once.
The picture is not a downturn so much as a held breath. In a poll of just over six hundred Singapore SMEs, around a third said they had frozen new hiring for the rest of the year, citing softer demand and stubborn input costs rather than any single shock. Most are not cutting; they are simply not adding, and that distinction is shaping how the labour market feels on the ground.
Sectors split predictably. Firms in logistics, food and traditional retail were the most likely to pause, while a slice of tech-adjacent and professional-services businesses said they were still recruiting selectively, particularly for roles that touch automation. Several owners told us the AI conversation cuts both ways — it is a reason to hold a vacancy open while they work out what a tool can absorb, and a reason to hire someone who can run those tools well.
Manpower economists we spoke to read the numbers as a soft patch rather than a turning point, noting that a hiring freeze is reversible in a way a retrenchment exercise is not. For job seekers, the practical advice was unglamorous: widen the search beyond the obvious sectors, and treat any role that mentions automation fluency as a door rather than a threat.
