SINGAPORE: Ariffin Sha, who contested in last year’s General Election under the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), was recently announced as the new president of the SDP Youth Wing, the Young Democrats.

Secretary-General Chee Soon Juan announced the Young Democrats’ new officers earlier this month after elections were held at the party headquarters. They will lead the youth wing from 2026 to 2028.

Along with Mr Sha, 28, the new officers are: Vice-President:  Alexandra Tan, 32, Honorary Secretary:  Kenneth Lin, 32, Council Members: Amir Farihin, 23, Iris Tan, 30, Joshua Shu, 29, and Xavier Tan, 25.

FB screengrab/ Bryan Lim Boon Heng (林文兴)

“Despite everything that’s been thrown at us over the years, we continue to grow.  I’m excited about this new group. They are a capable bunch, with good heads and, more importantly, good hearts,” wrote Dr Chee, adding that the team is made up of young professionals from the legal, medical, and communications sectors.

On his part, party chair Paul Tambyah, who shared the SDP chief’s post, wrote, “The future of Singapore is bright.”

In an Instagram post, Bryan Lim Boon, a past Young Democrats President, noted that “many passionate and capable young Singaporeans” have joined the SDP since last year’s GE.

Who is Ariffin Sha?

Mr Sha is a lawyer who founded Wake Up, Singapore. Last year, he was fielded as part of the SDP slate at Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC. Though considerably younger than other candidates, he’s been part of the national political discourse since he was 16, as CNA pointed out.

He was called to the Bar last August. Senior Counsel Harpreet Singh Nehal characterised his journey to get there as “anything but” straightforward.

Mr Singh, as well as Eugene Thuraisingam, a noted international arbitration and human rights lawyer, were both present for the occasion. Mr Sha had worked at the latter’s law office for over five years. 

“From a humble background to a scholarship overseas, from public interest cases to the recent election campaign trail, his story is one of grit, service, and purpose,” Mr Singh wrote, adding that he was the first in the family to have attended university.

According to Dr Chee, the Young Democrats’ agenda for this term includes developing young leaders, strengthening outreach to students and young working adults, and building a platform for youth voices on issues such as cost of living, mental health, climate concerns, housing, and employment. /TISG

Read also: Harpreet Singh, Eugene Thuraisingam in attendance as former SDP candidate Ariffin Sha is called to SG Bar

This article (‘The future of Singapore is bright’: Ariffin Sha is the new President of SDP’s youth wing party) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: The head of one of New Zealand’s leading wealth and fund management firms expressed admiration for Singapore’s Central Provident Fund (CPF) scheme, saying that his country could learn from it.

In a piece published in Stuff on June 9 (Tuesday), Blair Turnbull, the chief executive officer at Milford Asset Management, wrote, “New Zealand doesn’t lack wealth. We lack a system that directs it.”

He then went on to describe New Zealand’s retirement savings scheme, KiwiSaver, writing that though it is a strong foundation, the scheme is optional and is too heavily dependent on personal discipline when it comes to saving, which means people do not end up with enough.

He compared it to systems in other countries, where long-term saving is mandatory and becomes part of people’s working lives, noting that “Over time, this compounds into more comfortable retirements for individuals and deeper pools of capital to invest in their future.”

For Mr Turnbull, who lived with his family in Singapore for four years, the city-state is one of the clearest examples of this. The mindset behind CPF is what appears to have greatly impressed him, which is the focus on long-term planning that “shows up everywhere – in government, across the economy, and within households.”

He went on to praise Singapore’s scheme, where savings are not optional but “expected, structured, and sustained.”

For comparison’s sake, Mr Turbull noted that for Singaporeans younger than 55, the contribution rate is around 37%, while in New Zealand, it is around 7%, with many not contributing altogether.

“Those numbers tell the story. One system actively channels wealth into long-term savings. The other largely assumes individuals will figure it out for themselves – and many do not.

That doesn’t happen by accident. Singapore has spent decades building a system that makes long-term saving the norm. Over time, that has helped create both stronger retirement outcomes and one of the world’s most productive economies,” he added.

Mr Turnbull ended his piece by noting how New Zealand has been widely praised in a number of aspects. However, it would do well to follow Singapore’s example in adapting long-term thinking and saving into everyday life.

Last year, Singapore’s CPF was the first social security savings scheme in the Asia-Pacific to receive top marks in a yearly ranking of such systems.

On the 2025 Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index, CPF earned an A rating, the first time it has done so in the 17 years since the index began. In 2023 and 2024, the scheme received a B+ rating. Only the Netherlands, Iceland, Denmark and Israel were in the same top-rated group on the index. /TISG

Read also: Singapore’s CPF ranks 5th in the 2024 Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index

This article (Wealth manager says New Zealand can learn much from Singapore when it comes to long-term planning) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: People’s Power Party (PPP) chief Goh Meng Seng weighed in on the vote on the Workers’ Party (WP) leadership at the special conference of party cadres scheduled for June 28.

It was announced last week that WP members are expected to vote on whether Secretary-General Pritam Singh should remain in the party’s top post if he declines to step down voluntarily.

After Mr Goh made his feelings about the matter very clear in a lengthy Facebook post on June 5, many commenters pushed back, disagreeing with the points he raised.

The PPP leader said that he had spoken to a few WP cadres recently, discussing the upcoming meeting. According to Mr Goh, “most of the veterans” are against Mr Singh, though some had expressed support for him.

After Mr Goh asked them if they wanted “to see a peaceful transition of power from PAP to WP,” they allegedly kept quiet.

“I say WP can only become the ruling party in future elections if and only if the Middle Ground voters support them. It has absolutely nothing to do with their own emotional pro or against Pritam, but everyone is watching very closely how WP is dealing with the issue of Integrity Deficits!

Whether we like it or not. Priam has been CONDEMNED as a Convicted Liar, and this label will stick on him forever,” he wrote.

Noting that even the WP’s disciplinary committee had concluded that there had been a contravention of the party’s constitution in Mr Singh’s case, he wrote, “The remaining question is, how would WP deal with errand (sic) members with integrity problems!”

 For him, therefore, the vote in the upcoming meeting is “about the future potential of WP as the serious contender of power.”

What Singaporeans are saying

After Mr Goh’s post gained traction among netizens, commenters pushed back, with one saying that Mr Singh had already paid the price for his actions.

Former Singapore Democratic Party chair Mohamed Jufrie Bin Mahmood wrote, “Looking at the entire scenario, I do not really blame Pritam. I fully understand why he made the mistake of trying to defend the person who is the cause of all these problems. Apart from this mistake of his – YES I CALL IT A MISTAKE – which somehow has an effect on his reputation, he shouldn’t be judged solely by this particular mistake. Overall, I find that he is an honest person.”

“As members of the opposition, we don’t do things like what GMS is now doing, because it only benefits the PAP. So I hope GMS will stop publicly airing his frustrations. As members of parties alternative to the PAP, we should not do what GMS is doing,” the former WP member added.

Others expressed the belief that the WP cadres will continue to support Mr Singh, with whom they credited for taking the party as far as it has gone.

Some questioned Mr Goh’s temerity in commenting on the matter.

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” one wrote. 

“I can only say, an empty vessel always makes the most noise,” another added.

A Facebook user advised Mr Goh, “If you keep posting hate posts instead of alternative solutions for real-world problems, your next election will get less than 1% vote. WP, SDP, and even the independent party recognised this pattern from Singaporeans, but you still haven’t after so many years in politics… In Sg, where most of us are fairly educated, we value constructive feedback rather than hate speech. So good luck to you if you think hate speech gonna win you votes.” /TISG

Read also: Goh Meng Seng handed POFMA order once again

This article (Singaporeans push back against PPP chief Goh Meng Seng’s condemnation of Pritam Singh) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: The fertility rate of Singapore, which reached a historic low of 0.87 in 2025, has become an issue of national importance that the Government is doing something about, such as forming the Marriage & Parenthood Reset workgroup.

Singaporeans have also been tackling the issue online, such as when a local Reddit user initiated a discussion as to whether setting the workweek at a maximum of 40 hours would serve to help solve the problem.

Earlier this week, u/6fac3e70 wrote that Mexico had capped the number of working hours at 40 per week and employers were told not to cut salaries. 

They wrote that they have one child but work between 45 and 48 hours a week, adding, “not being able to spend enough time with family and being tired from work are dampening factors for more kids. Beyond the dollars and cents, it’s time and energy that money can’t buy.”

They wondered if the official Taskforce is considering this as one of the reasons for the low birth rate, but added that based on a self-assessment tool from the Ministry of Manpower, managers or professionals cannot “expect the law to protect you in terms of the number of hours you work” to the detriment of the number of hours spent with the family.

“Isn’t it pretty obvious why and does a task force really need to be set up to find out what we all already know?

Capping hours would mean you’ll need to hire more people to do the same job, and so that would even boost employment,” the post author added.

Historic low TFR

Earlier this year, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said that with Singapore’s citizen population growing by only 0.7 in 2025, it’s possible that by the early 2040s, the citizen population will begin to shrink.

In 2023 and 2024, the total fertility rate was at 0.97. Ideally, the TFR should be around 2.1 for developed countries in order to maintain a stable population. This value is known as the replacement level.

The last year that Singapore’s TFR was at 2.1 was in 1975. Since 1976, it has been below replacement level. DPM Gan added that resident births have declined to around 27,500, which is the lowest on record. Importantly, marriage rates have also dropped, and married couples are having fewer children or none at all.

“If no new measures are taken, our citizen population will start to shrink by the early part of the 2040s,” he said, though he added that “we cannot give up.”

What commenters are saying

Reddit users who commented on the post tended to agree, saying that they could definitely use more work-life balance.

“If MY and other countries can do so 40 hours, why can’t we? We’re inefficient with our time use anyway, moving to 40 will force efficiency rather than have staff out on 2-hour lunch breaks and spreading work throughout the day,” wrote one, adding that they’re most efficient the first four hours of the workday. 

“It’s 2026. There are still some of us working 5.5 or 6-day weeks, btw,” a commenter added.

Another Reddit user, however, wrote, “Work hours are not even the issue now. It’s the job uncertainty in general…

We are all already in debt with our BTO / resale, renovation, and student loans. A lot of us still have to take care of our ageing parents’ medical bills. We can be retrenched tomorrow with zero benefits.

We are not like other countries, where we can just move out of the city into a cheaper area. We are stuck in the most expensive city in the world for our whole lives. There is no way we can have kids.” 

“I am guessing only certain jobs would benefit. For example, teachers are notorious for bringing work home and continuing to mark over the weekends. So a hard cap on working hours is meaningless if overall workload doesn’t change,” a commenter pointed out, adding, “I am still for a 4-day work week. Way more tangible, and we also save in other aspects, such as travelling time. Plus, it’s also easier to plan for short getaways.” /TISG

Read also: Childcare job postings in Singapore see steepest decline in February as fertility rate hits record low 

This article (Singaporeans debate whether shorter workweeks could encourage more people to have children) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: A domestic helper who stole thousands of dollars from the children of her employer has been slapped with a 10-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to theft on June 3.

Mai Aye Su Naing, a 27-year-old Myanmar national, took money from the children to fund her addiction to online gambling, eventually stealing a total of S$17,000.

The children, who are aged 11 and 12, had kept their red ang pao envelopes as well as other money they had saved in one of the bedrooms. After Mai’s gambling addiction began, she began taking the money, according to a report in Shin Min Daily News.

The backstory

Mai began working for a family in Queen Astrid Park on Holland Road in March 2025. In February, she chanced upon an online slot machine game on Facebook, and found that she needed to add to her account in Myanmar in order to keep playing.

She first took S$1000 from the children’s money, giving it to a male acquaintance who helped her change the money to Myanmar kyat, which she deposited into her gaming account. Unsurprisingly, she lost all of it in a short time.

However, as she wanted to keep on playing and even recover her losses, she kept on taking money from the box where the children kept their savings, and later found six ang pao envelopes that contained S$6,000. She did not take all the money, but left S$100 in each red packet so that the children would not get suspicious.

She took S$17,000 from the children’s savings in a matter of a few days.

Each time she stole money, she would exchange it for Myanmar currency in order to gamble more. Though she claimed she won three times, she was never able to cash in on her winnings, as her gambling account was frozen.

When the children checked on their money and could not find it, they told their mother, who then questioned the helper. Mai was arrested after she admitted to having taken the money.

The helper, who has been unable to pay any of the money she stole from the children, apologised to the family in court. /TISG

Read also: Maid steals employer’s diamond necklace and shows it off in TikTok video

This article (Maid steals S$17K from employer’s kids’ ang pao & savings) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: When a local Reddit user shared how they organised a community event around a simple soup meal, others on the platform praised them for “restoring the kampong spirit” of Singapore.

In a post on Sunday (May 31), u/bangsphoto wrote about a recent event they called Kampong Soup Kitchen, where people who signed up would get served free soup, and if there was more soup, people who passed by were welcome to have some as well.

“This came partly from reading and thinking about how many people feel socially isolated today, even though we technically have so many ways to connect. Initially, I wanted to use private venues for community events, but rental costs made it hard to keep sustainable,” the post author wrote, adding that a Telegram user said they had organized a potluck meal at their void deck, and they could get permission from their town council to do the same.

The town council said yes, after the post author explained it would be a free community food event for a maximum of 50 people, and no money would be exchanged.

They ended up spending S$89.38 in all, including S$50 for rent, electricity, and water, and served two kinds of soup: a clear chicken soup with crêpes and vegetables, and a spiced pumpkin and carrot soup with red lentils and coconut milk, which they spent more than 20 hours cooking.

U/bangsphoto thanked everyone who volunteered to help out, and went as far as sharing the recipes here, where they also shared tips for anyone who wants to do the same.

“What surprised me most was not just that people came down for soup, but that neighbours and strangers naturally started chatting with one another. It made me realise that sometimes people are open to community, but there just needs to be a simple excuse for everyone to gather,” they wrote, adding that they hope to do more such events in the future.

Their void deck also got a shoutout as a “simple, affordable space for neighbours and strangers to meet.”

The post has since gotten over 6,000 responses, with many Reddit users thanking the post author for sharing their idea. 

“Love this concept! Bringing back the Kampong Spirit,” one wrote. 

“Looks like a great event! thanks for putting in the time, effort, and money to do this for your community,” wrote another.

A Reddit user who had attended the event also dropped a comment, writing, “Thank you! Was one of the participants at the event and absolutely enjoyed it! To anyone who hasn’t been, please don’t be shy and come! Everyone was super warm and sweet, and the experience was really great Hope to see y’all again!” /TISG

Read also: When ‘whole kampong’ works together to save a kitten

This article (After man hosts meal at void deck, Singaporeans praise him for ‘restoring kampung spirit’) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: Senior counsel Harpreet Singh Nehal took a trip down memory lane in a social media post, showing a photo of his kindergarten graduation certificate that his mother had framed more than half a century ago.

Mr Singh, who is with the Workers’ Party, wrote “Pungol Kia” as the heading to his post. The term loosely translates from Hokkien or Teochew to “child of Punggol” or “Punggol kid” and is a term of affection for old-timers who grew up in the old kampungs of Punggol, among others.

“My kindergarten was at the old Ponggol Community Centre near Lim Ah Pin Road. I remember we spoke a lot of Teochew in class, including with our teacher. She also complimented me once (in Teochew) for some words I wrote in Mandarin,” he wrote.

He added, however, that the best part of the day for him at the time was when his father picked him up after class on his bicycle. 

“I always looked forward to that,” wrote Mr Singh, adding, “Wonderful memories.”

The term “Pungol Kia” seems especially relevant, as Mr Singh had been part of the WP slate that contested at Punggol in last year’s General Election. Although the opposition team, which had been made up of political newbies, had lost to the ruling People’s Action Party slate headed by Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, the fact that the WP received a respectable 44.83% of the vote is not insignificant.

‘The real Son of Punggol’

Aside from commenters who said they looked forward to one day welcoming Mr Singh as a Punggol MP, several netizens began to call him a “real son of Punggol.”

“Oh, so you are the real son of Punggol,” wrote one. 

“You are the true son of Punggol,” added another.

“This could be the real Punggol son,” a third chimed in.

“Eh, can the ‘son of Punggol’ pls show something for proof too?” a Facebook user asked.

While he was not mentioned by name, the comments appeared to refer to Koh Poh Koon, who first entered politics in 2013 as a PAP candidate in the by-election in Punggol. Dr Koh often referred to himself as “kaki lang” (“one of us” in Teochew) and “son of Punggol” during the campaign period.

He ended up defeated by the WP’s Lee Li Lian, who won with 54.5% of the vote.

Two years later, he joined the PAP team at Ang Mo Kio and was elected into Parliament, and in 2020, moved to the Tampines team. While he continues to represent Tampines Centrak in Parliament, he recently announced he would step down from his duties as Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Manpower. /TISG

Read also: From Near Miss to Momentum: Harpreet Singh Sets His Sights on 2026

This article (After WP’s Harpreet Singh post shows he’s a ‘Punggol kia’, Singaporeans call him the ‘real son of Punggol’) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: Local food guru and Makansutra founder Kf Seetoh did his part in supporting the hawkers at Block 216 Bedok Food Centre & Market, who were affected after the Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA) announced on April 30 that it would conduct mandatory tuberculosis screening for the market’s tenants and workers, along with those from Heartbeat@Bedok and Singapore Pools.

Mr Seetoh also bumped into East Coast Member of Parliament Tan Kiat How (PAP), who is also Senior Minister of State for Health as well as for Digital Development and Information. Mr Tan has been vocal in appealing for people to help out the hawkers affected by the TB scare.

But first, the food guru was pleased to find that the area was relatively full, starting from the car park at Heartbeat@Bedok, and he had to park at the back as the spaces near the front were all taken.

“So everybody’s still coming,” he said in a video he posted on Facebook on Sunday (May 24). 

Mr Seetoh panned his camera around the food centre, pointing out queues and noting that there were so many people around. He also said that people who felt wary could put on masks. He added that he had missed the recent “Still Safe to Eat, Still Safe to Meet” voucher initiative event that Mr Tan had organised.

For that day, he chose to patronise stalls run by two graduates of the Culinary Institute of America. He had an $8 bowl of prawn mee soup, along with carrot cake strips and yam cubes (Chai Tow Kway).

“So good lah, beats french fries anytime,” he said.

Mr Seetoh, who had just returned from a trip to Manila, where he opened an eatery called Hainan Jones, said that while the food in the Philippines is very good, the sheer range of food that’s available in Singapore is “absolutely gorgeous.”

He also reminded everyone to support the wet market hawkers, whose businesses have not yet returned to normal.

FB screengrab/ Kf Seetoh

As he was walking around the hawker centre, he bumped into Mr Tan, who told him that business is around 60 to 70% back.

And when Mr Seetoh noted how unafraid Mr Tan is and that he doesn’t even wear a mask, the MP said that he goes to 216  Bedok Food Centre & Market every day.

After the screening, the CDA announced that 473 individuals tested positive for TB. However, the vast majority of them are expected to have a latent TB infection (LTBI), which is not uncommon among Singaporeans. This means they do not have symptoms of the infection, are not infectious, and do not pose a public health risk. Only one active case of TB has been found, and the person infected started treatment before May 19 and will no longer be infectious after completing two weeks of medication. /TISG

Read also: Pritam Singh, WP members visit 216 Bedok Food Centre to support hawkers amid TB scare

This article (Kf Seetoh supports 216 Bedok Market hawkers amid TB scare, bumps into PAP MP Tan Kiat How) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: After the Arsenal Football Club ended a 22-year drought and finally won the Premier League last month, Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh, although a longtime Manchester United fan, congratulated Arsenal fans in Singapore.

Mr Singh posted a video of himself being confronted with a long line of Arenal fans within the WP, which ended with him doing a version of ManU’s Mattheus Cunha’s famous and gif-worthy celebratory dance move. 

The short clip, posted on June 2 (Tuesday), has been viewed nearly 720,000 times and has gotten hundreds of comments from Instagram users.

Mr Singh even engaged with some of the commenters, thanking one who advised him “Watch your knees ah…” and replying “Up the Hammers!” to a Westham fan.

And when WP Non-constituency Member of Parliament Andre Low posted a gif of Bryan Mbeumo celebrating a goal against Tottenham Hotspur from earlier this year, as if suggesting that the WP chief could also copy his moves, Mr Singh joked back that “Any mimicking of Mbeumo’s celebration must include beard length.”

Several fellow ManU fans simply wrote “GGMU,” which stands for “Glory, Glory Manchester United,” a popular rallying cry, chant, and acronym used by the club’s fans.

Meanwhile, a fellow football fan wrote, “You gave me another reason to list you as my fav politician.”

Singaporeans perhaps first learned of Mr Singh’s love for ManU in 2012, the year after he was first elected into Parliament.

“Tough being a Manchester United fan today……..a performance unworthy of champions. Advantage Man City, it seems,” he wrote in a Facebook post on April 22, 2012, and when commenters discussed the match, he also added commentary.

In February 2022, after house visits at Eunos, the ward he has been representing in Parliament over the past 15 years, he posted about touching a “This is Anfield” sign outside a resident’s home for the first time in his life.

Later that year, also during house visits, he was happy to have found a fellow ManU supporter at one household, posting a photo with a resident who had hung an Old Trafford M16 sign on his gate.

“There are a rather large number of Liverpool fans in the Eunos ward of Aljunied GRC. I have seen my fair share of ‘This is Anfield’ signs, wrought-iron gates in the shape of the liverbird….you name it. 

So it was nice to see Hamdan and family last night during house visits, playing their part to bring some balance to the Force!”” he wrote. /TISG

Read also: Man U fan Pritam Singh happy to see Old Trafford sign at Eunos amid ‘a rather large number of Liverpool’ supporters

This article (ManU fan Pritam Singh congratulates Singapore’s Arsenal fans) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

With the backlash against AI not only having begun but also gaining steam, especially among the young, some top tech executives are beginning to take back what they initially said that the technology would be responsible for doing away with many jobs.

AI-driven layoffs have taken centre stage in the news of late. Just last week, Standard Chartered announced that it was cutting around 7,800 jobs by 2030 as it employs AI to streamline its workforce, while Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, began informing thousands of its employees that they were being retrenched. Amazon slashed 30,000 corporate jobs in late 2025 and early 2026, and Oracle also removed the same number of positions as part of a multi-billion-dollar restructuring.

This may just be the beginning, given that Goldman Sachs estimated in 2023 that AI may yet displace tasks equal to 300 million full-time jobs across the globe.

In Singapore, the recent job cuts announcements had drawn sharp criticism from former President Halimah Yacob, as well as from ex-PAP MP and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Home Affairs Amrin Amin.

Amid these job losses and fears of a much-tighter job market, the youngest cohort of workers, Gen Z, has begun to reject AI, especially in the United States.

What some tech bigwigs are saying

Perhaps in reaction to the backlash, some top tech executives have begun to say that the situation may not be so bad after all.

At the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Accelerate AI Conference in Sydney, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said that the speed with which AI is developing will not produce the “jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate or talk about,” according to an AFP report.

Mr Altman added that he “thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened.”

Meanwhile, Jensen Huang, who heads the specialised chip company Nvidia, told CNA earlier this week that it’s “too lazy” for company executives to publicly blame AI for substantial job cuts.

“The narrative that connects AI to job loss, for many of the CEOs that are doing it, is just too lazy. AI has just arrived. How is it possible they’re already losing jobs?” Mr Huang said, adding that he believes this was being said to make executives “sound smart,” but they just ended up “scaring people.”

When asked by CNA’s Victoria Jen what he would say to people who are afraid of losing their jobs due to AI, his advice to them would be to learn AI.

“You’re not going to lose your jobs to AI, you’re going to lose your job to somebody who learnt AI better than you,” he added. /TISG

Read also: Ex-PAP MP on AI-linked job losses: The worker is the cost being cut

This article (AI won’t cause mass unemployment, top tech bosses now argue) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: According to the Global Talent Trends 2026 report from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), 48% of professionals working in the finance sector in Singapore are afraid that artificial intelligence (AI) will affect their jobs.

“Concerns around the use of AI in finance and accountancy recruitment emerge as one of the standout issues this year,” said Jamie Lyon, the Head of Skills, Sectors and Technology at ACCA.

“The use of AI by organisations for recruitment has to be carefully considered. It should be used to augment, but not replace, human judgment. Strong governance, transparency, and regulation around its use in the future is fundamentally important to ensure recruitment processes are fair and unbiased,” the report reads.

In Singapore, over four in five (81%) say they are confident that they can learn and apply new AI technology. The report showed that 51% of the respondents from Singapore are using AI in their work daily.

Eleven thousand individuals from 160 countries working in accountancy and finance roles participated in the biggest yearly talent survey for the industry, answering questions on topics that range from career ambitions, AI concerns, sustainability, social impact, intergenerational collaboration, entrepreneurial ambitions, and returning to the office, ACCA said in a statement on Wednesday (May 27).

Interestingly, the number of finance professionals who say they aspire to become entrepreneurs is growing. Across the globe, the figure is now at 48%, up from 45% in 2025. In Singapore, the change is even more stark, from 31% last year to 42% in the latest survey.

Perhaps even more striking is that finance professionals desire careers that are purpose-driven, and a significant number of the respondents from Singapore (70%) say that social issues and human rights are important to them. While 54% said they wanted jobs tied to social impact, 63% said they aspire for finance roles that are focused on the environment.

The number of finance professionals in Singapore who expressed these views is higher than in other developed countries. For example, in Australia, the percentage of respondents who said they have ambitions for finance roles with environmental remits is 52%, and in the United Kingdom it’s 47%.

“The data from Singapore reflects a workforce navigating uncertainty around technology, purpose, and career progression,” noted Maurice Cheong, the head of Singapore, Australia, New Zealand & Oceania at ACCA. /TISG

Read also: There’s a new way to climb the finance corporate ladder, ACCA says

This article (More Singapore finance workers using AI daily, but many still fear job impact) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

SINGAPORE: Pete Hegseth, the United States Secretary of War, will be in Singapore in the next few days on his fourth official visit to the region.

Mr Hegseth will be meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing, according to an announcement from the US Department of War. He will be participating in a number of bilateral and multilateral meetings with allies and partners in the region.

“He will also deliver plenary remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue focused on the Department’s forward-looking, common-sense approach to safeguarding U.S. vital national interests in the Indo-Pacific,” the announcement added.

The Shangri-La Dialogue, held yearly, is organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). It is the premier defence summit in Asia, where key stakeholders discuss important security challenges in the region.

Held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, it is scheduled this year from May 29 to 31, with the Keynote Address to be delivered by Tô Lâm, the President of Vietnam, on May 29 at 8 p.m. Singapore time.

Mr Hegseth, meanwhile, will deliver his remarks at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, May 30.

It was reported on Tuesday that Dong Jun, China’s Defence Minister, will be missing this year’s dialogue for the second year in a row. Sources familiar with the matter said that a lower-level People’s Liberation Army (PLA) delegation will be attending the dialogue in Singapore instead, according to the South China Morning Post.

Who is Pete Hegseth?

Mr Hegseth, 45, served in the US military several times between 2003 and 2021, including guarding detainees at  Guantanamo Bay detention camp, volunteering in the Iraq War as an infantry officer, and later serving as a civil affairs officer, and working as a counterinsurgency instructor in the US and Afghanistan. He currently holds the rank of major.

After a failed bid for the US Senate in 2012, he worked at Fox News from 2014 to 2024, later becoming one of the hosts of Fox & Friends Weekend, where he caught the eye of Donald Trump. He supported Mr Trump’s first presidential campaign and later became one of his advisors.

After Mr Trump won the election in 2024, he named Mr Hegseth as s his nominee for Secretary of Defense, despite the numerous lawsuits and allegations against Mr Hegseth, including sexual assault. He was confirmed in the position after Vice President JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote. In 2025, the Defense Department was renamed the Department of War. /TISG

This article (US War Secretary headed to Singapore; to meet with PM Wong, Chan Chun Sing & speak at Shangri-La Dialogue) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.