In short
- Projection = the average of a job's last two MOM medians, grown by the economy-wide wage trend.
- Economy-wide wage growth for 2026: 3.73% a year. Average real growth of MOM's median income over 2023 to 2025, plus the MAS forecast for 2026 inflation.
- Range: an 80% range sized from each job's year-to-year swings, blended with the average swing across all jobs, and calibrated on a past year.
- Published only when useful: jobs whose range would be wider than ±15%, or with fewer than three linked years, show "Not projected".
- Coverage today: 101 of 523 jobs projected; 309 too volatile; 113 without enough history.
How well it works
We ran the engine as if it were mid-2023 and mid-2024, then compared its projections with what MOM later published.
| Test year | Jobs | Error, all | Error, no change | Published | Error, published | In 80% range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2024 · calibration | 210 | 9.1% | 10.5% | 67 | 8.0% | 79.1% |
| June 2025 · holdout | 255 | 9.8% | 10.1% | 61 | 8.1% | 78.7% |
Error = typical (median) absolute percentage error. "In 80% range" applies to published jobs. The 2024 test set the range width; 2025 was held back as an independent check. Past tests used the inflation that actually occurred in place of a forecast.
- Result: across all jobs the engine is only slightly better than assuming no change. Single-job medians swing around 10% a year from survey sampling, which no model can predict.
- Where it helps: for the steadier jobs we publish, the typical error is about 8%, and the 80% range contained the real outcome close to 80% of the time in both tests.
Inputs
| Input | Use | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Occupational wages, 2020 to 2025 | Each job's pay history | MOM, Table 4, all industries |
| Job code links | Joins SSOC 2020 (2020 to 2024) to SSOC 2024 (2025), one-to-one links only | SingStat correspondence table |
| Median monthly income, 2015 to 2025 | Economy-wide wage trend | MOM |
| CPI, annual | Separates real and price-driven wage growth | SingStat M213801 |
| 2026 inflation forecast, about 2.0% | Expected price growth | MAS, 14 October 2026 |
| 2026 GDP forecast, 4.5 to 5.5% | Context only; not used in the v1 calculation because it did not improve past tests | MTI, 11 August 2026 |
Limits
- Not official data and not advice. Projections are estimates and are replaced by MOM's figures when published.
- Singapore only. Malaysia's DOSM does not publish job-level wages, so job projections are not possible there.
- Jobs that changed code between SSOC 2020 and SSOC 2024 have shorter histories and are often not projected.
- Same coverage as MOM's survey: full-time residents at private employers with 25 or more staff, bonuses excluded.
What comes next
- Add MOM editions before 2020 to lengthen histories, which should narrow ranges and qualify more jobs.
- Test industry wage changes and job vacancies as extra signals, keeping them only if the backtest improves.
- Re-run and re-test every June when MOM publishes a new edition.