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SINGAPORE – More white-collar workers are seeking help with unions and trade associations after losing their jobs .

The National Trades Union Congress has also seen more cases of retrenchments due to business restructuring recently, said its assistant secretary-general Patrick Tay.

In 2025, NTUC handled over 3,900 retrenchment and termination-related cases for professionals, managers and executives (PMEs), 5 per cent more than in 2024.

Some of these cases were linked to offshoring and relocation as companies face cost pressures, Tay said in an interview with The Straits Times. Offshoring refers to companies relocating parts of their operations overseas, often to reduce costs.

In some instances, roles are being shifted out of Singapore “even when local PMEs are experienced and capable”, he said.

Artificial intelligence has also become a factor, although economy-wide numbers are still scant. Tay said: “We are also seeing businesses cite investments in AI as a factor for workforce restructuring. Some workers find themselves displaced because job roles are changing faster than they can adapt.”

The cases handled by NTUC, which leads 58 affiliated trade unions and six affiliated trade associations, cut across its various bodies, including the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management@NTUC. The figures do not include cases from its Employment and Employability Institute (e2i).

While total employment in Singapore has grown and the unemployment rate has remained low at 2 per cent in 2024 and 2025, retrenchments have increased over the past few years from 6,440 in 2022 to 13,020 in 2024 and 14,490 in 2025.

NTUC is concerned that many PMEs are not aware they can join unions and be represented by labour movement during retrenchments, Tay said.

It is particularly worried about those in the professional services, finance and infocomm and technology sectors as they are most exposed to the effects of generative AI at work, said the Pioneer MP, who is also director of strategy and legal at NTUC.

A recent retrenchment case that NTUC helped to mediate involved an IT worker who wanted to be known only as Benjamin.

Despite what he said were good performance reviews at a non-unionised company for 18 years, his employment was unexpectedly terminated with one month’s notice in February 2026, he told ST in an e-mail interview.

Benjamin tried to negotiate for more with his company, given his long service, but was denied.

He then sought support from NTUC, which he had joined as a general branch member in 2024 after seeing news of job losses online. He filed a case with NTUC’s PME – its department dedicated to providing support for such workers.

A career coach from NTUC, Herjeet Singh, wrote to the company to ask for a mediation on his behalf, and highlighted Benjamin’s long service and performance history.

The company eventually offered six months of ex-gratia payment plus one month’s bonus payment. Through mediation, the matter was resolved amicably with a settlement of $47,600, said Benjamin.

Rank and file and certain executive employees in a unionised company are entitled to union representation, said Ray Chiang, a senior partner at law firm Dentons Rodyk.

A collective agreement signed between a union and an employer typically sets out the retrenchment benefits workers can expect.

An employee at a non-unionised company can still approach NTUC for support but without a collective agreement, such workers rarely have a contractually enforceable retrenchment benefit, Chiang said.

NTUC can persuade the non-unionised employer to offer adequate benefits, but cannot compel it to.

“The benefits in the tripartite guidelines are followed by a vast majority of employers, but the guidelines are not strictly legally binding,” Chiang said.

The surest protection, he added, is for non-unionised workers to have retrenchment benefits written into their employment contracts – though this currently remains rare in Singapore.

Raghu, a longtime executive in banking technology, had such clauses in his contract but did not originally receive the stated benefits.

The 55-year-old father of two, who gave only his first name, was retrenched in January 2024 from a software firm serving banks, where he ran regional operations.

Losing his job took Raghu by surprise and caused the sole breadwinner a considerable amount of stress.

He had been an NTUC member for years but, like many PMEs, had no idea the union would offer him support, as he assumed it stepped in only at unionised companies.

(From left) Raghu, head of project management in the banking and finance sector, and NTUC assistant secretary-general Patrick Tay on May 26.

ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG

His employer initially offered him a one-month notice period. After NTUC’s PME unit walked him through his rights, he negotiated that up to three months’ salary in lieu of notice, along with two months’ salary of retrenchment benefit – what he was originally entitled to in his contract.

Many Singaporean PMEs are…