Question

Mr Christopher de Souza: To ask the Minister for Trade and Industry how has the pandemic affected Singapore’s nominal wage growth and nominal national productivity.

Written Answer by Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong

1. Nominal productivity[1] declined by 0.4%, while nominal income[2] declined by 0.6% in 2020. This was a reversal from the previous ten years (i.e., 2009 to 2019), when nominal productivity and income rose by 4.1% and 4.5% per annum, respectively.

2. As economic activity and the labour market recovered from the pandemic, nominal productivity and nominal income rebounded by 9.5% and 3.2% respectively in 2021. In level terms, nominal productivity and nominal income had recovered to 9.0% and 2.6% above their respective pre-pandemic (i.e., 2019) lev