Singapore's young workers take on side hustles as AI reshapes the job market
Source: South China Morning Post
Singapore's young workers are increasingly turning to side hustles — selling clothes on TikTok, running home cafes, flipping Pokemon cards — as AI reshapes the job market and nearly a third say a single salary is no longer enough to survive.
Singapore's economy is posting some of its strongest growth numbers in years, but for the young workers at the sharp end of the job market, the headlines don't match reality. A growing number of Singaporeans in their twenties and early thirties are quietly building second incomes — selling clothes on TikTok, running home cafes on weekends, flipping Pokemon cards — not for extra luxuries, but because they no longer trust a single salary to carry them through. A January survey by Randstad found that nearly a third of workers in Singapore feel they need to combine a full-time job with freelance work or another source of income just to stay afloat, and AI anxiety is making the outlook worse.
South China Morning Post reports that young professionals like Adele Lee, a 32-year-old personal assistant who brings in S$500 a month from TikTok livestream selling second-hand clothes, are turning side hustles into a structural part of their financial planning. Others like Celest Chew, a 24-year-old marketing executive who started a weekend home cafe, say they are watching AI tools take over tasks they used to do — generating images, writing copy — and do not want to depend entirely on a job that could be reshaped by automation. "It is pretty scary," Chew told SCMP. "The reason why I started the home cafe is because it is something that AI cannot take over."
The anxiety comes despite Singapore being widely regarded as Southeast Asia's most AI-ready economy, with government programmes like SkillsFuture and a strong digital infrastructure. But as Walter Theseira, an economics professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, points out, preparedness does not eliminate uncertainty. "Nobody can give that assurance," he said, noting that knowing how to use AI is not the same as being able to keep one's job. First-quarter unemployment data shows redundancies hitting their highest level in nearly three years, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore flagged subdued labour demand as companies grow more cautious.
Economists point to a divergence between headline economic data and ground-level reality. While Singapore's GDP grew 5.7 per cent in Q2 2026, the consumer-facing services sector expanded at just 2.7 per cent — the slowest in the economy. Companies like H&M and Gardenia have moved parts of their regional operations to Malaysia to cut costs, and RHB Bank's chief economist Barnabas Gan notes that cautious hiring is becoming a pattern. For young workers, the gap between a strong economy and a fragile personal financial position is widening, and AI is accelerating the shift.
Why it matters for Singapore: The side hustle trend signals a deeper structural shift in how Singaporeans think about work and income security. AI is not just replacing specific job functions — it is changing the psychological contract between workers and employers. If nearly a third of the workforce now feels it needs a financial backup plan, the implications go beyond personal stress: consumer spending patterns, housing demand, and even social stability could be affected. The government's training programmes may prepare workers for AI, but they cannot eliminate the uncertainty of how companies will deploy it. That gap between preparation and reality will define Singapore's labour market for the next decade.
