Singapore foreign population falls due to weak economy: Report

SINGAPORE: Singapore's non-resident population fell by 1.6 per cent to 1.65 million, the first drop in 14 years, mainly due to a decline in work permit holders, according to a new government report.     

The fall in the percentage of population was attributed to weakness in the construction and the marine and offshore engineering sectors, the National Population and Talent Division said in its annual population report.     

Non-residents consist of work permit holders, mid-skilled foreign employees, students, foreign domestic workers and other dependents, The Straits Times reported. A large number of these economic migrants are from India, Bangladesh, as well as Southeast Asia and China.     

With the decrease in the number of non-residents, the total population of Singapore grew by 0.1 per cent to 5.61 million as of June this year. This is the slowest rate of growth since 2003. In 2016, it was 5.6 million.

In contrast, the decade before 2017 saw total population grow by an average of 2.45 per cent per year.     

Meanwhile, the citizen population continued to age, according to media reports. The proportion of citizens aged 65 and above was 14.4 per cent in 2017, from 13.7 per cent a year ago.     

This is markedly higher than 10 years ago, when this proportion was at 9.4 per cent. The median age of citizens rose from 41.0 to 41.3.     

Citizen births remained stable. It fell in 2016 by 1.7 per cent to 33,167, after a year of record high births in 2015, which experts attributed to the effect of 'SG-50', the celebration of 50 years of Singapore independence.     

The 2016 figure remains higher than the average over the past decade of 32,200.     

On the whole, the citizen population grew by 0.9 per cent to 3.44 million, due to citizen births and immigration, the report said. The permanent resident population remained stable, at 527,000.