Acting Manpower Minister Jasmin Lau urged employers to explain automation and retraining plans and be frank about possible retrenchments or slower hiring.
A Singapore Institute of Technology campus building in Punggol in December 2025, shown for context. Acting Manpower Minister Jasmin Lau used the Sept. 17, 2026, launch of SG AI Xchange at SIT to urge employers to communicate more openly with workers about AI, automation and workforce plans. Photo: JohnLim99/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
SINGAPORE – Acting Manpower Minister Jasmin Lau urged employers to be more transparent with workers about automation, retraining and broader workforce plans as companies adopt AI.
Speaking at the launch of SG AI Xchange, Lau warned companies not to mistake employee silence for acceptance as they consider AI adoption and changes to work.
“Don’t take a quiet workforce for an agreeable workforce,” she said, adding that workers want to know whether employers are already considering retrenchments or slower hiring.
Lau said companies planning automation should explain what could happen to affected roles and what retraining would help employees adapt. Employers facing a weaker business outlook should also tell staff, she said, because workers may otherwise assume organisational changes are being driven by AI when they are not.
The comments came as Singapore pushes wider AI adoption. Lau said the country has close to 100 AI Centres of Excellence spanning sectors from finance to manufacturing, but argued that companies need to bring workers along as they build new capabilities.
An International Labour Organization study published in July estimated that 42.2% of Singapore’s total employment in 2025 was in occupations with more than minimal potential exposure to generative AI, the highest share among nine ASEAN countries with available data.
The ILO stressed that exposure measures the potential for tasks to be affected and said widespread labour-market disruption was not yet visible.
In August, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong called for earlier support for workers exposed to AI, including targeted training, career guidance, job matching and placement before disruption turns into prolonged unemployment.
Lau said “a lot more communication and transparency will help keep our workers and our companies together.”
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Migrant TimesSingaporeArtificial IntelligenceEmploymentRetrenchmentWorkforce ReskillingFuture of Work
