SINGAPORE – Fewer than 1% of workers across ASEAN are employed in “green jobs”, according to a new report that covered several countries in the region including Singapore.
The ASEAN Green Jobs Report used mostly data from professional social networking platform LinkedIn for insights into labour demand.
Besides Singapore, the report provides an assessment of green jobs and green skills across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. It was released on Oct 27 during the launch of the ASEAN Labour Statisticians Network (ALSN) in Singapore.
By definition, green jobs refer to those that “contribute substantially to enhancing environmental quality that are also decent jobs”, according to the ASEAN Framework and Action Plan for a Just and Inclusive Transition to Green Jobs.
The report found that Singapore has the lowest share of green jobs among ASEAN countries surveyed, possibly because of the absence of an agricultural sector, although green jobs are also found in other industries such as construction and manufacturing.
In the Republic, green talent accounted for up to 25.2% of hires in the construction sector and more than 30% in the utilities sector, according to data compiled from LinkedIn job postings in 2024.
In comparison, green talent accounted for about 18.6% of hires in the Philippines’ construction sector, and roughly 15% to 16% in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Meanwhile, many ASEAN member states have significant agricultural populations, which bodes well for introducing greener practices in agriculture such as organic farming, agroforestry and precision irrigation, the authors noted.
In both the construction and manufacturing industries, green talent recruitment is likely to be driven by the number of health, safety and environment managers and sustainability officers.
In 2025, the most common green job titles in LinkedIn job postings in Singapore were safety coordinators; environment, health and safety managers; and safety managers.
Meanwhile, the fastest-growing green job titles included sustainability managers, sustainability consultants and directors of sustainability. These roles were particularly involved in monitoring and compliance around environmental issues.
Richard Horne, a consultant on green jobs who presented key findings at the ALSN launch, said renewable energy is expected to create many green job opportunities in the region – potentially over 5.5 million jobs by 2050.
However, authors in the report highlighted that the main limitation was that renewable energy jobs were “poorly identified” in industry and occupation data, and warranted separate treatment.
There were other limitations to the methodology. For instance, LinkedIn data was not available for all ASEAN countries and tended to be skewed towards higher-skilled jobs. When it came to official data, countries had different collection methods and definitions.
One of the 10 recommendations linked to the ASEAN framework and action plan is to use green potential for workforce and skills planning and consider workforce planning measures to support renewable energy development where relevant.
Horne noted that while overall employment in green jobs is very low, a more indicative measure is “green potential” – defined as jobs that could become green with the right policies, initiatives and systems in place. For example, he added that some aspects of agriculture could be considered green if operated more sustainably.
The report showed that about 22.3% of total employment in ASEAN countries is in occupations with green potential – a much larger proportion than the realised share of green occupations, which stood at under 1%.
Other recommendations include accounting for digitalisation and artificial intelligence in green skills planning, as well as exploring measures that may support demand for green jobs, taking into account national circumstances.
