Don’t Just Make Money, Save Money in Your Hires!

Most business advice focuses on one side of the ledger: how to make more money. Fewer conversations focus on the other side — how to keep more of what you make. One of the most overlooked places to do that is hiring.

The Overlooked Line Item

Hiring is one of the largest recurring costs for any SME, and yet it’s often the area where the least strategic thinking happens. A role needs filling, a job ad goes up, someone gets hired, and the process repeats the next time. Few owners stop to ask whether there’s support available to make that process cheaper — because in Singapore, and increasingly across the region, there often is.

Local Hiring Support  (Government grants)

Singapore offers a range of government grants and schemes designed to offset the cost of hiring and training local talent — support for wage costs when hiring certain groups of workers, funding tied to training and upskilling, and schemes that reduce the cost of taking on new employees in specific circumstances. Many SME owners are aware these exist in a general sense but have never actually checked which ones their business qualifies for, or how to apply.

This isn’t a loophole or a technicality — it’s a deliberate part of Singapore’s economic policy to support business growth and workforce development. But navigating eligibility criteria, application processes, and scheme changes takes time most business owners don’t have, which is exactly why so much available support goes unclaimed.

There are grants for

-       New hires

-       Mid career workers (above 40 year olds)

-       Job Redesign within your company

Overseas Hiring Support  (Government Grants… also!)

The same logic applies when hiring in new markets. Many ASEAN countries — including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam — have their own incentives for job creation, training, and local employment, particularly relevant for companies setting up a regional office or manufacturing base. Understanding these incentives before hiring, rather than after, can materially change the cost structure of an overseas expansion.

Why This Gets Missed

Grant and incentive schemes tend to sit in a grey zone between HR, finance, and government relations — nobody’s specific job in a typical SME. HR teams focus on filling roles, finance teams focus on budgets after the fact, and by the time anyone thinks to check for available support, the hiring decision has already been made and the opportunity to apply has often passed.

The Fix

Treating hiring grants and incentives as part of the hiring process — not an afterthought — means checking eligibility before a role is filled, applying in time to actually benefit, and keeping track of which schemes apply as regulations change from year to year.

For companies making hires both locally and across the region, this can mean meaningful savings on wage costs, training budgets, and overall cost of expansion — money that goes straight back into growing the business instead of unclaimed paperwork sitting in a government portal.

AP Global Works helps SMEs identify and apply for hiring grants and incentives — locally in Singapore and across the markets they’re expanding into — so growth doesn’t cost more than it needs to.

Book a consultation to find out which hiring grants your business qualifies for.