Singapore population crosses six million mark

Singapore's total population stood at 6.04 million as at June 2024, a 2 per cent rise from June 2023, the Government's latest Population in Brief report showed.

- Shermaine Ang

This is the first time the figure has crossed the six million mark. The increase was due mainly to a 5 per cent increase in the non-resident population, which grew from 1.77 million in June 2023 to 1.86 million in June 2024, said the annual report released on Sept 24 by the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD).

The increase in non-resident workers, including work permit holders and migrant domestic workers, helped to provide much-needed services to meet Singaporeans' social and economic needs, for instance by supporting caregiving needs, and by filling occupations that residents are typically not keen on, such as construction jobs, said the NPTD in a statement.

Residents continued to take higher-paying jobs, with employment growing in sectors such as financial and insurance services, information and communications, and professional services, it pointed out, where the high labour force participation rate remained robust and unemployment rates of residents and citizens remained very low.

Meanwhile, among citizens, there were fewer births and marriages in 2023, while the proportion of seniors continued to expand.

When it came to the non-resident population, work permit holders - semi-skilled non-professional, manager, executive and technician workers - contributed most to the increase, followed by migrant domestic workers.

The citizen population rose by 0.7 per cent from 3.61 million in June 2023 to 3.64 million in June 2024, while the permanent resident population grew by 1.2 per cent from 538,600 to 544,900 over the same period.