GovTech lays off 38 employees in second wave of retrenchments

The Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) announced it will lay off 38 employees as part of a three-round restructuring plan. The second round of cuts, effective October 22, targets roles primarily focused on traditional project delivery. GovTech expects the layoffs to reduce reliance on external vendors and empower teams to take greater ownership of their products.

Following the workforce review, 106 employees will retain their current positions, while another 106 will be eligible for conversion and apprenticeship pathways to transition into new roles. GovTech aims to retain, retrain, and redeploy its workforce wherever possible, as seen in the first phase of layoffs.

The first round of retrenchments began in July, when 93 out of GovTech's 3,900 employees were laid off. The agency anticipates that roughly 7% to 9% of its workforce, totaling between 270 and 350 employees, will be affected over the next two years. The layoffs impact staff deployed to 23 government agencies.

GovTech will provide career coaching, job matching, and placement assistance to retrenched staff, who will receive one month's salary for each year of service, capped at 25 years, plus a three-month ex-gratia payment. The agency stated that retrenched employees will continue receiving salary and benefits during a six-week handover and notice period.

GovTech Chairman Chng Kai Fong explained that critical systems demand in-house capabilities to respond quickly to national needs. He emphasized the need for greater control and agility in modern technological development and highlighted the growing importance of critical government digital infrastructure. Left unchanged, legacy systems would become harder to secure, change, and more vulnerable to failure.

Chng stated that the agency requires individuals capable of defining problems, shaping architecture, making sound build-or-buy decisions, and defending systems. He cited Singpass, Parents Gateway, and CDC vouchers as examples, emphasizing that these services cannot be handed to vendors and considered complete. Instead, teams must build, operate, secure, and continually improve them with full accountability.

Despite the layoffs, GovTech expects to employ more people by the end of the exercise, focusing on recruiting software engineers, product managers, designers, data specialists, and cybersecurity professionals. As of October 23, around 276 open positions were listed by GovTech on Careers@Gov, covering various roles.