Budget 2026: a strong push on AI and jobs

CNA's Deep Dive unpacked Budget 2026, where AI ran through the entire speech. Experts noted that until now, early adopters captured the AI productivity gains while laggards risked being left behind — "the ladder pulled up before they could climb on." The government's role is now to intervene: spreading practical use cases, tying AI grants to actual job-quality improvements, not just letting firms buy a tool and fire half their workers. PM Lawrence Wong personally chairs the new National AI Council, signalling top-level attention.

On the workforce side, the biggest change is merging SkillsFuture Singapore and Workforce Singapore into a single statutory board jointly overseen by MOE and MOM. The point is to close the gap between training and jobs — training has to lead somewhere real. Jeffrey Low, who left an 18-year cabin-crew career, used SkillsFuture Level-Up to retrain in digital product management at Singapore Polytechnic and now works as a duty terminal manager at Changi.

Foreign-worker policy tightens in parallel. EP minimum salaries rise from S$5,600 to S$6,000 in 2027 (S$6,200 to S$6,600 in finance), SPass from S$3,300 to S$3,600 (S$3,800 to S$4,000 in finance), and the local qualifying salary from S$1,600 to S$1,800. CPF members get a new lifecycle investment scheme, with the CPF Board picking two to three low-fee providers — letting younger members take on more risk earlier without exposing them to high fees or scams.

Caption language: en · Fetched: 2026-05-02

So hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Deep Dive with Tiffany and myself, Stephen. And today we are sinking our teeth into the budget because Prime Minister Lawrence Wong just gave it announced a whole bunch of goodies, right? >> Yep. Yep. Anything stood out for you? >> I don't know. A lot of talk about AI, so that was quite interesting. And uh uh of course, well, more CDC vouchers. Who who doesn't like that, right? [laughter and gasps] >> I think the one thing that stood out to me was that the was the merger between Skills Future and Workforce Singapore. M >> I felt that that was a bit of a long time coming but we can get into it a little bit more later on.

>> Well, let's do just that because we do have a lot to talk about and with us today we have associate professor Walter Tacera from the Singapore University of Social Sciences. >> Hey, good to be here. >> And Dr. Ruben from the Lee Kuanu School of Public Policy. >> Great to be here. So gentlemen, I think we are all of the consensus that the budget speech really leaned heavily on jobs. So jobs was kind of like the thread that was running through the entire speech. >> Um was it something that really stood out to you guys? Maybe we'll start with you, Ruben. >> Um it was interesting how he started. So last year he started geopolitics, this year geopolitics, but last year he went straight into individuals and cost of living. this year he went straight into companies and what we can do to make them resilient. Right.

So that's really expecting that there may be some downsides. So how can we put buffers in place to help companies especially bounce back and not lay off workers? >> Walter. >> Yeah. So for me I think it was about getting ahead of the curve because I think a lot of the uh speech was about trying to lay out what are the risks and the opportunities that Singapore faces. Right. I mean this is a change world. Okay. To be fair, I do feel like the government tries to make that point. Every single year you have a change world crisis kind of thing. But I think this year it bites a bit deeper than it usually does.

And I think that's where uh all these initiatives to really uh lean hard into AI are coming up because I I think what we've been seeing in the last year actually is that you know when you look at one set of numbers the numbers for GDP growth for jobs and so on things look okay. You know like people's incomes are improving what's there to complain about. But when you go and talk to people on the street, there is this huge disconnect because very few people are sitting pretty. Lots of people are thinking what's going to happen to my job? Uh can my kid find a job when they graduate from university? So it was necessary for the government to get ahead of this uncertainty and unhappiness and you know say okay, we've got a plan. Lots of things we're going to do about it. Let's see what happens, you know.

So I think that's how you think about the budget this year. >> And and to be fair, that should be the way the government looks.

I mean we know the world keeps changing and in fact the last few months have been pretty volatile and and people are seeing all the things that are happening and therefore there is concern there is worry so this whole concept of jumping on the AI bandwagon I mean we've been pushing it for a while we said we would but now we really going to focus on it with even the council set up for it but really I mean who is this going to hit the most because are we talking about the young ones the older ones is it relevant to everyone >> so so actually I think it is relevant to everybody uh and I think The reason why it needs to be relevant to everyone is that there's actually already a group out there for which all of this is old news and those are the early adopters, right?

So the early adopters whether they are in large companies or whether they're techsavvy people or whatever. Look, for the last couple of years, they've already been buying the premium AI subscriptions. They've already been rolling into the workflows. They've already been telling people, you know what, I think I don't need to hire an intern this year. I don't need to hire this person. You know, they've been doing all this. And I think the real danger is that if we leave it just only up to the early adopters, what's going to happen is uh once you reach a certain scale, the ones who are lagging behind, it's as if the ladder has been pulled up before they can climb on it, right?

And they cannot get on the ladder and then they can't get a job and then you know we we can't depend on the generosity of the early adopters to share all of this knowledge and so on with the rest. So I I do see this in a way as the government trying to to get in there and intervene in the market and say we need to spread the knowledge more. We need to encourage early adopters to spread the business practices. We need to learn what's going on and and try to implement it more broadly because only then uh it's actually going to work. Yeah. >> So this is really a push more for those who have not really adopted AI and to give them a reason make it more accessible and say hey you know let's go. >> Yeah. This this I think it works not just for individuals but also for companies right. So AI is really front and center.

We've been spending a lot of time, effort and money and leadership right on AI. In fact, Singapore is uh one of the earliest countries that uh sort of appointed a chief AI officer and now with this national council PM himself is leading it. So because of all these investments, the question is what is my ROI, right? What's my return on investment? >> So the return investment has to be companies finding productivity from implementing AI. There was a lot of focus on implementation of AI.

Okay, he talked about Harris and you know so so he needs to make these examples come alive so that people can see okay it's worked for other companies maybe it could work for me and these are the schemes to do so to either decrease cost increase revenue in an uncertain world >> so do you think that this is just the first step in getting um more employers on the bandwagon as well because it feels like six months if I'm the worker I feel like 6 months is not enough um I want something that is a a little bit more long-term a bit more sustainable and that's something that can the government keep sustaining this you know rather or should should companies you know jump on this and say okay then now we will continue with you know that that premium >> you see the other word that came up quite often was transition right so actually no to be honest nobody quite knows what is going to happen in this transition and companies themselves need to figure out how is AI going to work for them that's why they're taking a sectoral focus right I think starting from accountancy to law so I I think it it's giving the tools uh so that companies could change their mindset to say look this is we cannot just look at the risk of this but maybe also the opportunities but they need time to try it out unless they try out they won't know what will work what doesn't work for them I think they're trying to find this try out during this transition period >> and that's tough because at the same time while we want to embrace technology many people are fearful of it and they as we've just pointed out it is taking away some jobs you know so and PM has said it's not well it's not meant to come at the expense of workers but inevitably it will come at the expense of some workers >> so how do we sort of uh you know calibrate that.

>> Yeah. So that's where I think uh there are two things to think about. One is the policies that we're using to try to get AI out into the field into the firms, right? And I think what is going to be important about this phase of policies is that as far as possible, we have to tie the grants and incentives for implementation of AI to actually improving the quality of work uh the quality of jobs. So I don't think it can be about I'm going to give the company a check and they use that money and they buy some AI solution and they fire half their workforce, right? I think it really has to be you're going to buy the solution but you're also going to buy the training services on the job training and so on to get your workers how to use it productively and then that's how we assess the success of it.

And uh that's the other part of the puzzle which is what are the systems we put into place to help workers manage this transition. Um and I think here it comes back to what I mentioned earlier which is that on the job training and adaptation is really going to be the most important thing. Uh because the workers already have this deep reservoir of skills and experience of the job. It's just that they need to adapt it to a new workflow using technology but we want to make the best of their intuition and experience with being more productive with technology. Uh what we do not want is that they lose their jobs and then we reskill and retrain because unfortunately that is very mixed record. reskilling and retraining. Uh it's a moving target, right? What what is the next thing to retrain to exactly?

And that leads to a lot of unhappiness compared to adaptation. >> So what can this new AI council that you know Prime Minister Lawrence Wong is going to chair? What what what will they you know be looking into?

I don't know what they will be doing but I think if I were if I were in the AI council or were you know interested in that um I think the most important thing is to actually develop that body of knowledge about use cases in our context in our industries and firms uh you want to be looking I think for the leading firms which are already doing it you want to understand how they're doing it how they've improved productivity what were the steps they took to get their stuff onboarded and then you want to understand how Can I scale this down to the level of firms with much less organizational resources, human capital resources than the leading firms because that's where it has to go eventually in the end and you know if there's a council and there are representatives from the big firms and you know uh institutions of higher learning and so on that you really want to get them on board to say you need to help out because true sure you're going to you you already have a head start you know you're already using this productively but we need you to help out to uplift the rest of you know society and the workforce along with it as Well, >> but why make this a national agenda?

Cuz I'm if I compare with countries like let's say the United States, right? I mean, Silicon Valley is full of people who are like that, you know, they they they're innovators and and then people look at that and they see it as inspirational and then they they they they move along with that. So the private sector drives that. So in this case, why do we make it, you know, so I guess >> the government driving it? >> Yeah. Like so and so prescriptive like this has to happen. We need to have a council and then we need to have this. Yeah. It just feels like um AI is no longer seen as a flavor of the year. AI is here to stay, right? So, so that there's a saying that it's not an era of change but a change of era. So, because of that um you know AI now needs to be whole of society, whole of government.

That's why the prime minister himself is is taking that leadership. I think to be honest there's a lot of AI anxiety. So I think uh the council is strategic but there's also a psychological dimension to it. Uh to to say look uh we we we got you at at you know at at the highest level. Uh let's try to figure this out together. Again you bring it back to the weer society. Then he talked about let's not be spectators you know let's work on this together. I think that's what uh they're trying to get with this. >> Yeah. So we're really putting it on the agenda and saying this will be a priority and we're going to look at it and it's not just something that if it happens and if it does well you know but we're going to put it on our radar.

So let's uh move on and talk about you know the the workforce because that's another jobs are always a concern and we had workforce Singapore and skills future. Skills future being the one where we can tap into you know get money to take sign up for courses they will be merged into a new stat board.

Um well many are saying well it's about time you [laughter] know I mean >> yeah so I think the merger is really about trying to solve this problem that uh for most Singaporeans training is a means to an end right I mean of course we do have many Singaporeans who train for personal interest and fulfillment and so on but the end a lot of us care about is can I get a good job with that right and I think this merger is a bit about trying to bridge that gap between on the one hand uh training which may be perceived to be not sufficiently practical oricical able to jobs and on the other hand you have got employers and work processors out there who need skilled workers and they don't know where to get them from and they don't know how to implement the training system to get necessarily get them.

So I think it's about trying to bridge the gap between that. Um I think from the user perspective that is the the Singaporean looking for training. It will be crucial I think in this to really improve the ability of the system to help to match uh workers with uh good realistic training options to give them more information about the uh outcomes or prospects from training uh to really you know strengthen the link between the training and the uh end that I care about which is the better job mobility and so on. >> But I always thought that they were they were kind of talking to one another. So if I go for like you know skills future upgrading uh I I I was under the pressure or maybe I was sold the idea that the people on the workforce side will will acknowledge that and they will see that and they will match me with jobs.

So I think this is complicated by the fact that there are two agencies right. So there may be some duplicative you know sort of uh activities. So I think this part of this integration approach hopefully do some sort of last mile nudging uh to say skill skills teacher credit is not for just for upskilling it's upskilling for you to get a a Jason job or to get a job. You see that's where WSG comes in. So I think it's really to tighten the value chain and to make it as seamless as possible. So, so it goes back to what Walter was saying about how I guess you kind of don't know the end goal because I sign up for this course, but it's not like, oh, if I sign up for ABC course in this, therefore I will get an internship at this company and therefore it will lead to a full-time job at this other company.

None of that is promised down the line, right? So, you end up taking a course and then you end up spending another six months still looking for a job and then people will say, well, actually, maybe I should have taken another course. Yeah, I would say that that kind of promise is only integrated into a subset of our skills training because we have had uh much more structured skills training which works hand inhand with industry which pre-identifies uh industry jobs and roles has a structured training regimen and also pre-selects uh the workers to go for such conversion. Right?

But that is a minority and actually um one of the issues of course is is that with such specific programs you're actually just shifting the uh the locus of where you make a decision on people down to the skills training end right so instead of deciding uh to interview people and hire them you're deciding do I like this person enough to admit them into the training program so it's it's kind of narrow by necessity whereas uh I think the skills future credit training has been much more broad-based and because it's broad-based we aren't uh as many Singaporeans who are interested to take it. But that also means that we just can't put into place a funnel or a checking system or something to make it so, you know, uh discriminatory that that once you graduate from it, you're definitely 100% qualified for an amazing job. It's Yeah.

Where do you put the funnel? >> Yeah, we we we spoke about this on a on an episode about the skills future credits as well. And I think there was there was this, you know, there's two schools of thought, right? That if you use the credits, it translates to a good job. But then on the other hand we also want people to use the credit so that they can enjoy learning so that in general we progress as a as a as a country that you know I have my interest but now putting them together into a statboard is kind of sending the signal isn't it that that you know it it is tied directly to a job. So how is that sort of helping us as a as a nation to just enjoy learning? >> I think now it feels with this merger a little bit more functional. I think it's important to balance the functionality of the skills credit uh with just enjoying learning. >> Yeah.

So maybe that will help you know streamline the process and make it a bit clearer for people who sign up so they know that when this course you know if it's floor arrangement then I know generally I'm not going to get a a job just you know unless I'm opening my own flower shop you know >> I can be an entrepreneur which which I think fits very well into our next point about local businesses. Let's talk about local businesses a bit a big hurdle for many entrepreneurs and smaller companies. And now we're saying the spass minimum salary and the employment pass minimum salary will increase. >> Work permit levies will also increase for certain sectors. So a lot of businesses will be like are you kidding me? >> Yeah. [laughter] That's what they're thinking right >> so hard to find a local workforce. So what does that mean for me now?

You know it is this process of uh continual calibration that we have to carry out in the local job market. Uh because the problem is with our foreign employment policy. If we don't calibrate then there's going to be a certain number of local employers who would like to take the easier way out you might say and then basically rely on lower cost foreign manpower to keep their cost down rather than going for productivity. So I think every year you have to calibrate it because as Singaporeans enjoy uh higher skills, higher productivity, higher uh wages and so on, it becomes even more important to ensure that we are reserving the foreign manpower slots for uh people who can actually truly value add and not just replace Singaporeans at a lower price. Uh but I think the other part of it of course is that uh we just can't calibrate only.

We have to do some business transformation or at least try to kickstart it. And I think that's where the uh basically the incentives to adopt AI and business transformation and so on really come into place. So the message to businesses I think is you know kind of like we know what some of you are up to. You're just trying to find the least cost way out but you really can't keep doing this because this is not sustainable and here is our carrot. So can you please take up the carrot and really transform in a meaningful way? >> I see. I see.

And and so will this then also result in I guess companies maybe um you know not not hire so much like maybe pause in terms of their hiring because they're also you know at the end of the day they're also thinking that I need to funnel some money more money into my my my >> well I guess you would just do the math right if now the levy is this price considering the whatever accommodation the cost of bringing in this worker is >> and then I have to do AI as well. No, no. So now you you would compare it to AI. If I go subscribe to this platform, I get to pay this fee and do this which is 60% of what the guy would do. >> Is it worthwhile? >> Yeah. So what does that mean for I guess the local workforce like people like like me? >> Yeah. It it it's really tough because I think um you know we we are trying to be an education hub as well.

you know we have a lot of foreign students with us uh top bright foreign students around the region and it it also means that it's very hard for them to carry on their trajectory in Singapore uh with this higher EP cost and uh uh you know as pass right um so that's probably something to think about how do we sort of balance it out so that talent can flourish top talent can come here right and and companies will be open to getting this top talent because it takes a while to groom this top talent and we want them to be groomed in Singapore >> from the other angle I think uh there is an encouragement to hire local workforce as well.

So I think they are trying to go both ways but I think we need sort of this overall thinking uh to see how we can still attract uh the best uh foreign talent in Singapore to Singapore >> and it's not just about attracting people in you know prime minister also said we want to send our local businesses out >> but the whole idea is that we have to thrive in this new global order right so we have to stay open we have to connect internationally so he's offering you know help uh there were some grants that were mentioned as well will this be enough for our companies to take that leap because they always you know when we when we've had like business owners come on they would say that you know it's very hard to compete with foreign businesses when they have scale.

So if we are going out there into the world is that is that is that enough for us to to you know even venture out if we are trying to grow domestically. >> Yeah. So I really like what Walter said about the the use cases, the case studies, right? Because unless you have seen a successful local business internationalized, it's very hard to understand what's the pathway. >> So yes, incentives are great, but for rubble to hit the road, I need to see I I need to be given real life examples of how that can be done and whethermemes can work together to go to market together. It's very hard for just one company to enter a new market. But if a band of companies from a sectoral perspective can do that, I think that's going to be very powerful. >> Yeah, that's right.

And I thought what was interesting was also the identification of which markets uh we're going to look at. Uh Africa, for example, uh South Latin America. I thought it was very interesting because I think these could be areas where there might still be some room for uh Singapore companies to have a bit of a comparative advantage in terms of bringing uh you know basically the Singapore brand name along with them which is you know Singaporeans. know how to make a business work, know how to look for markets, know how to, you know, be productive hopefully. So, this is something we can go in there with. And these are important areas because they're not so well tapped by perhaps our competitors. And I think there's also this point that Singapore uh may not have the geop geopolitical baggage that some of our competitors do, right?

So, you you accept foreign investment from some countries in these places. You think does it mean I'm aligning myself with a particular global order or something like that? What does that mean? But Singapore, no. I mean, I don't think it sends that signal. So, we could be, you know, we could fly in more easily perhaps than some of the other competitors. >> So, from what you're saying, you need somebody kind of leading the way so that it's not just one company going out, but maybe a group of a few companies going out together to that market. >> It feels a bit like a coordinated effort. You mentioned mentioned open opening embassies, right?

the enterprising enterprise Singapore you know uh giving the grants to some of these companies so it feels a bit coordinated >> I want to talk a bit about you know the thing that we always think about which is you know like retirement cost of living and and different things right so one of the things that um prime minister mentioned um at the budget speech was the new CPF investment scheme yeah >> right so I want to understand why is the government now looking at investments for people with a longer runway like you know like sort of offering these kind of investments for them to use their CPF money. >> What research shows is that the num one of the biggest uh causes to to failure of financial investing for individuals is they trade too much. And they trade too much because they think things are going down, they sell, then they lose money.

Things are going up, they buy, but they buy the peak. People are basically very bad at timing these kinds of things. So, we have to put in some guardrails on this. Um but as for why it is in there, it is because the way CBF is today designed is that it's not really uh it doesn't really make sense from the purpose of building up long-term uh savings. And that is because when you're saving for the long run, uh conventional financial theory says you should put more investments in riskier assets when you're young, when there's a higher rate of return to compensate for the risk and when you can stomach the volatility and then you shift to more conservative assets with lower returns at the end. problem with CPF is it's safe, 100% safe, fairly low return all the way. It doesn't Yeah, it doesn't make sense for young workers.

So that's why I think this scheme is important. >> So it's not that they are projecting that one day, you know, um that 4% is not going to be enough. >> I I I feel it's a really a managed risk approach, right? Uh we we we have heard that uh there are just so many investment scams out there.

So I think that's probably at the back of their mind if they can centralize that um um you know CPF as as a sort of platform for investments and of course as Walter astutely mentioned you know uh younger people would like to take on more risk more returns right and on the whole is to try to maybe decrease that risk of scams if they can centralize some of these investment portals within the opices of CPF I think it's a bit more of an offensive but also a defensive approach to this risky environment out there with regard to scam So it's kind of like providing people an option. Before that you had either CPF or you go outside completely. So now there's kind something that's in between which allows you to earn more but have more risk but over a longer period of time you know that can be uh sort of uh amotized a bit more.

Actually uh today a lot of people also invested their CPF money privately uh using the CPF investment scheme but actually what the data showed on that is that many of the investors do not even beat the CPF risk freeway return again because they make the wrong investment so they trade in and out too much and so this new scheme uh there will have to be some guardrails I think put in place to prevent people from uh not doing themselves any favors. >> Uh we can't help it. Human human beings are just greedy. We always want more. you know, we think we can outsmart the system, but >> put 10 bucks in and leave it for 100 years. Yeah, you make lots of money. [laughter] >> I mean, right.

[gasps] >> Um, lastly, I think just to wrap up, uh, you know, prime minister talked a lot about the we first approach, you know, even before in the leadup to the budget, he mentioned about this, you know, as a society, we need to move towards a we first society. Based on his speech today, you know, how far do you think we will go in fostering that, you know, just based on his announcements? Wow, the silence. [laughter] >> That's a a tough question. Um I mean I mean okay I what I want to think about I think is is maybe not so much the traditional realm of uh social welfare spending and so on where where I think there are actually good um improvements because for example there was this announcement that cominkling plus which is aimed at helping lower income households achieve social mobility that will be quite significantly strengthened.

All these are good things. But I think in terms of we first uh if we take the thesis seriously that we're facing some kind of unpreented change to the way we work in our economy, right? Because of AI and so on. That's where I think we do need to adopt a we first approach because I think there is this real problem that if we all think it's every man a company for himself, right? Or every man for himself. In other words, uh the moment I discover a way to use AI to improve my workflow, I keep it to myself. I don't tell other people, you know, I I wait to out compete them and so on. I'm not sure we're going to get anywhere as a society and economy. Uh we're just we'll just destroy each other, right? So I think that is where the coordination comes in.

Uh having to learn best practices from the leading firms, the use cases and then trying to disseminate them throughout the economy. I think that would be really helpful because there is the the big danger and I think you see this also in talk about AI because you see that a lot of the use cases, a lot of the investment there's a thesis out there which is that I'm going to corner the market on this and then take over everything, right? That's what a lot of investors are trying to do. And so that would be corrosive if it were uh spreading at scale in Singapore. This concept, >> I think a weer society is um it's it's a good long-term sort of strategy, right? Because unless we stay cohesive, it's very hard to navigate choppy waters. So I think he he's just trying to to say don't stand on the sidelines. Come and participate with us.

Come and co-create with us. So I think that me the inherent message is we need a very long-term strategy and that long-term mission that will take us there is this we first society we kind of need to >> we can't really stand by the wayside and we need to be really participative >> and I think the the underlying message also to be participative and not be paralyzed by fear is that we can't we can no longer have a fixed mindset we need a growth mindset right so that's why there excuse future so all these things are connecting the dots to hopefully help us reframe the future as one of opport opportunity rather than one of danger where we are paralyzed by fear. >> Yeah. And that's a good way to sum it up because if you look at it, it is a full circle.

I mean everything supports each other, you know, and we do have to come together as a team because if if the arms and legs don't work together, the body won't function effectively and we will not be able to brave the storms that are coming ahead because actually nobody really knows what could happen. >> Yeah. >> So I think that's a nice way to sum it up. But thank you so much for connecting the dots for us because you know I when I was listening to the speech I didn't know where the dots were leading. [laughter] >> Yeah. But it it really makes sense right now. So so I hope that you know whoever is watching or listening you know it is also helpful to you as well. You know what are your thoughts about the budget? Yeah. >> Let us know. You can write to us at CNA podcasts at mediaop. com. sg. Yeah.

>> And stay with us because over on deep dive we've got lots more uh great conversation coming up with many special guests as well in the coming weeks. So do keep watching us.