Singapore attracts more foreign headquarters as staffing growth trails
Foreign headquarters increased by almost 34% between 2019 and 2024, while their employment of resident professionals, managers and executives rose by less than 8%.
Singapore had 1,030 foreign headquarters in 2024, compared with about 770 in 2019, according to official statistics reported by The Straits Times. Their resident workforce of professionals, managers and executives reached 13,700, against 12,700 over the same period.
The figures are the latest available, with preliminary data for 2025 scheduled for publication in early 2027. Advisers told the newspaper that companies continued to establish headquarters in Singapore without necessarily locating their biggest regional workforce there.
Patrick Na of professional services firm TMF Group said headquarters increasingly concentrated on strategy, senior decisions and essential functions, while intermediate operational and coordination roles shifted to cheaper locations. Ray Tay, co-founder and managing director of VIVOS, said rising manpower costs had encouraged the trend and the pandemic had accelerated it through wider adoption of remote-working tools.
French beauty company Clarins has nearly 200 staff at its Singapore regional headquarters, fewer than its workforce in China or Japan. President and chief executive Jonathan Zrihen said Singapore's role included developing talent and directing Asia-Pacific strategy, alongside worldwide responsibilities for travel retail.
AI note-taking start-up Plaud offers a different staffing example. The company said Singapore, home to its recently opened regional headquarters, had its largest team. It employs 100 people there and plans to increase that to around 150 by the end of 2026. Megumi Yoshinaga, its head of Asia-Pacific marketing, said much of the expansion would be in engineering, product and AI capabilities.
