The 2025 Singapore Opportunity Index

Singapore’s strength has long come from investing in people. The 2025 Singapore Opportunity Index examines how that promise can be sustained amid technological change, demographic shifts, and global competition by focusing on what employers do inside firms.

Led by the Burning Glass Institute, Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower, Harvard Business School's Project on Managing the Future of Work, and the Singapore University of Social Sciences, the researchers analyzed a validated, economy-wide dataset of occupations, wages, and hiring to track actual worker movements and assess firms’ workforce outcomes.

Two findings stand out. First, employers shape pay, progression, and retention, though there is no single formula; effective firms use purposefully designed approaches that turn jobs into careers. Second, neither industry nor size determines outcomes; culture, onboarding, and progression visibility matter. The Index offers an evidence-based map of practical levers that help firms grow talent and reduce attrition, and it equips policymakers and employers to see where opportunity is strong and where it can be strengthened. The core message: opportunity is built by design across the full course of a career.

Read the full 2025 Singapore Opportunity Index .