Singapore’s population has passed 6 million

SINGAPORE – Singapore’s total population was 6.04 million in June 2024, up 2% from June 2023, according to the government’s latest Population in Brief report.

For the first time this number exceeded six million.

The increase was mainly due to a 5 percent increase in the non-resident population, which increased from 1.77 million in June 2023 to 1.86 million in June 2024, according to the annual report released on September 24 by the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD).

The increase in the number of non-Singaporean workers, including work permit holders and migrant domestic workers, has helped provide much-needed services that have met the social and economic needs of Singaporeans, for example by supporting caregiving needs and filling positions that are typically disliked by locals, such as construction work, the NPTD said in a statement.

Residents continued to take up better-paid jobs, with employment increasing in sectors such as financial and insurance services, information and communications, and professional services – it was indicated that the labour force participation rate remained high and the unemployment rate among residents and citizens remained very low.

Meanwhile, fewer births and marriages were recorded among citizens in 2023, while the percentage of older people continued to increase.

In terms of the total population, work permit holders – unskilled workers, non-professional workers, managers, executives and technicians (non-PMETs) – contributed the most to the growth, followed by migrant domestic workers.

The number of citizens increased by 0.7%, from 3.61 million in June 2023 to 3.64 million in June 2024, while the number of permanent residents (PR) increased by 1.2%, from 538,600 to 544,900 during the same period.

Mr Christopher Gee, deputy director and senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), said the fact that almost a third of a city’s population is non-resident is “not a shockingly high number” for most cities around the world, citing New York as another example.

As stated in the NPTD report, foreign workers in Singapore currently constitute about two-thirds of the non-resident population, while the remaining one-third is mainly made up of migrant domestic workers, their dependents and students.

Migrant workers are not included in foreign labor force statistics because they work in households, unlike foreign workers who contribute directly to sectors such as construction, manufacturing and services.

The annual population growth rate of 1.1% over the past five years was slightly higher than the 0.8% in 2014-2019.

This was mainly due to an increase in the number of work permit holders in the construction, marine and processing (CMP) sectors following the COVID-19 pandemic, the report said, as companies cleared the backlog of projects delayed due to the pandemic.

Growth was also strong for foreign workers in non-CMP sectors such as retail, food and beverage, hospitality and healthcare, with an 8.8% year-on-year increase, Mr Gee noted. “The gaps in the workforce are opening up more and more and there is demand for this type of work.”

IPS senior researcher Gillian Koh said: “As Singaporeans, we are very aware that there is a big increase in housing construction and MRT because we need and want it. We also know that there is global demand for some key manufacturing and pharmaceutical activities and we should never say no to business.”

She noted that as of 2021, work permit holders and migrant domestic worker categories make up more than half of the non-resident population, rising to 59 per cent in 2024. “These are not jobs that Singaporeans are willing or able to do in the numbers required.”

Based on the current average growth rate, Mr Gee forecasts that Singapore’s population will reach 6.37 million by June 2030.