Within the financial sector, the Singapore government’s focus on jobs has spurred confidence in banks – local and global alike – to further grow their workforces in the city-state.

Various initiatives focused on employment have been rolled out by the Singaporean government and banks are increasingly taking advantage of the opportunities to efficiently invest in talent. 

OCBC, for example, is tapping into the «SGUnited Traineeships Program» – a recently launched joint initiative between Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Workforce Singapore (WSG) – to hire fresh grads which include benefits such having 80 percent of training allowance funded by the government. Other banks are leveraging the «Job Support Scheme» to retain workers while continuing expansion.

Here are some of 2020’s top recruiters in banking by hiring targets:

OCBC: 3,000+

OCBC is the latest to earmark and ambitious hiring target of over 3,000 jobs despite the economic headwinds from an ongoing pandemic, according to a statement from the bank, making it Singapore’s most ambitious banking employer year-to-date. Seven out of 10 jobs on offer will be full-time roles, equaling 2,100 new positions or around 19 percent of OCBC's 11,000-strong workforce. 

Full-time role available cover wealth management, corporate banking, risk management, data analytics, operations and technology where the bank is specifically seeking support to roll out its digital solutions for employees and clients.  

The remaining 900 roles will include 500 traineeships and 400 internships to university and polytechnic graduates and students, respectively.

DBS: 2,000+

OCBC’s announcement follows that of rival Singaporean lender DBS, which said last month that it would boost its total headcount of 12,000 in the city-state by some 17 percent with over 2,000 hires.

Over 1,200 of the roles will be permanent, of which one-third (more than 360) will be focused on technology. This included more than 300 jobs in UX/UI, data science, fraud detection, compliance, as well as consumer and institutional banking technology; and more than 60 jobs in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, full stack development and data analytics.

«While DBS is also prudent in our outlook, as a key employer in Singapore, it seemed right to us to not just continue with hiring for business-as-usual activities but also to actively create new jobs where we can, so as to help more people tide through this difficult period,» said DBS chief executive Piyush Gupta. 

UBS: 300

Foreign banks are also beginning to signal continued confidence in Singapore under the pandemic with UBS targeting 300 new jobs over the next 18 months in Singapore – a 10 percent boost to its 3,000-strong existing workforce in global financial hub.

In addition to broad job retention – the Swiss lender is also tapping into the «Job Support Scheme» – UBS will also focus on helping mid-career individuals hone new skills and remain competitive in a dynamically and rapidly transforming talent market. Through its «Singapore UBS Program for Employability and Resilience» (SUPER), the bank will target both local graduates and mid-career individuals. 

«The vision is to create the financial workforce of the future,» added Edmund Koh, president of UBS Asia Pacific. «UBS has the knowledge and experience to make this happen and in partnership with the Job Support Scheme, we are confident we can make a difference.»