S’pore Population Dropped to 5.69 Million As More Foreigners Lost Their Jobs

Every year, the National Population and Talent Division releases data about the Singapore population.

Last year, we have 3.5 million Singaporeans, 530k Singapore PRs and 1.68 million foreigners. In total, we then had 5.7 million people living in our tiny island.

In the last few years, the number has been increasing: in 2016 and 2017, we’ve had 5.61 million people; in 2018, we’ve had 5.64 million; and as mentioned, last year, we’ve had 5.7 million.

And because 2020 is so special, even the trend changes: this year, we dropped to 5.69 million people.

The reason?

COVID-19 (again).

S’pore Population Dropped to 5.69 Million As More Foreigners Lost Their Jobs

According to the latest data released by the National Population and Talent Division, the number of Singaporeans has increased from 3.5 million to 3.52 million.

However, the number of PRs dropped from 530k to 520k.

The largest drop comes from foreigners: it dropped from 1.68 million to 1.64 million. That’s almost 40,000 foreigners leaving Singapore.

The reason is largely due to a reduction in foreign employment in services, especially for work permit holders.

The National Population and Talent Division said, “These trends were largely due to COVID-19 related challenges, brought about by weak demand and travel restrictions.”

Other than fewer work permit holders, the number of E Pass holders and S Pass holders have decreased, too: there were 4,000 fewer E Pass holders and 11,200 fewer S Pass holders if you compare December 2019 with June 2020.

In total, for the year of 2019 to 2020, foreign employments dropped by about 46,000—for comparison’s sake, between 2018 to 2019, the foreign employment number grew by about 22,000.

You can read more about the different work passes here.