In February 2026, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong stood in Parliament and painted AI as one of the shining pillars of Singapore’s economic future. Budget 2026 was full of optimism: national AI missions, Productivity Solutions Grants, free premium AI tools for citizens, and bold talk of transforming finance, manufacturing, healthcare, and more. AI was practically touted as the panacea for our sluggish economy.
Fast forward three months. The headlines tell a different story – one of pink slips, anxious families, and cold corporate calculus.
The Disconnect is Staggering
Just a day after Standard Chartered announced it would slash over 7,000 jobs (around 15% of its corporate functions) by 2030 to accelerate AI adoption, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong stepped up with what the government does best: measured, responsible-sounding advice.
Banks and financial firms, he said, should use AI not just to cut costs, but to create better jobs and train workers for higher-value roles.
How comforting.
Well, Tell that to the back-office staff in risk, compliance, HR, and operations who are watching their roles get automated away. Tell that to the mid-career Singaporeans who spent years building domain expertise only to be labeled — in the now-infamous words of StanChart’s CEO Bill Winters — “lower-value human capital.”
Even former President Halimah Yacob felt compelled to drop her Milo ads to speak out, calling the remark “disturbing” and “demeaning.” Workers are human beings with families, she reminded us, not interchangeable line items on a balance sheet. Absolutely, but then … so what? Can Madam Halimah teach these bean counters how to run their businesses profitably while adopting her noble values?
Meanwhile, HSBC’s CEO Georges Elhedery was more blunt: generative AI will “destroy certain jobs” while creating new ones. His message to staff? Don’t fight it. Become “more productive versions of yourselves.”
Easy to say when you’re not the one updating your resume at 11pm. That reminds me how former PM Lee who has never had to worry about the cost of groceries giving us money-saving tips.
The Futility of “Just Train Harder”
This is the recurring script in Singapore:
- Global company announces massive AI-driven layoffs.
- Government urges “responsible adoption” and “workforce transformation.”
- Everyone is told to upskill, reskill, embrace change.
- Rinse. Repeat.
The problem? The pace of AI advancement is brutal. What you train for today might be obsolete in 18–24 months. Many of these “higher-value roles” (AI prompt engineers, model validators, data governance specialists) require skills that take years to build properly. The volume of jobs being destroyed far outpaces the new ones being created, at least in the short-to-medium term.
Banks aren’t stupid. They’re doing exactly what capitalism rewards: cutting expensive human overhead in repeatable, rules-based work. The “create better jobs” part is often “aspirational” PR. But look. When you replace workers with AI, the cost savings are immediate and quantifiable. That’s operational. The new roles? That’s aspirational. Vague, fewer in number, and usually requiring younger, cheaper, or imported talent.
The Helplessness is Real
Imagine you’re a 38-year-old Singaporean with a mortgage, kids in school, and 15 years in banking operations. You’ve been a loyal, diligent worker. Suddenly, AI tools can do 60-70% of your job faster and cheaper. Your company offers “reskilling pathways.” You attend the workshops. You get the certificates. But deep down, you know the truth: the system no longer needs as many people like you.
This creates a profound sense of helplessness. You’re not lazy. You’re not resistant to change. You’re simply being made redundant by technology moving at exponential speed while the social safety nets and transition support move at Singapore’s famously cautious pace.
Meanwhile, our government seems struggling with this scale of disruption. SkillsFuture credits and job matching portals are helpful, but they’re bandaids when entire job categories are being hollowed out. Telling people to “embrace change” while their livelihoods evaporate feels tone-deaf. For a population that is so used to spoon feeding and getting high PISA scores, you can’t expect too many of them to embrace change and come up with something. The majority are waiting for jobs.
The Hard Questions PM Wong Should Have Considered
- What happens when AI eats middle-skill white-collar jobs faster than we can create high-skill replacements?
- How long can we sustain social cohesion when the benefits of AI flow mostly to capital owners and top talent, while the costs land on the broader middle class?
- Is “don’t hold back AI adoption or we’ll lose competitiveness” the only acceptable narrative? Or should there be harder conversations about pacing, redistribution, or protecting core segments of the local workforce?
The average Singaporean worker isn’t asking to stop AI. In fact, I’m loving it. I’ve done away with illustrators. I definitely wouldn’t call them “lower-value human capital”, but am I supposed to feel guilty for not using them anymore? I’ve already anticipated such problems the moment I read about PM Wong’s rather upbeat but otherwise hollow budget speech. Things are playing out just as I expected. For sure, AI will help businesses, but it will also make many workers redundant across more and more industries. Even children will give you that yao mo gao chor ah look if you tell them that our workers can upskill and adapt.
Until that gap between glossy, aspirational budget speeches and brutal corporate reality narrows, the helplessness will only grow. And no amount of “higher-value role” rhetoric will fix that.