At the end of June, Singapore’s total population stood at 5.4
million, a rise of 1.6 percent over last year – the slowest in nine
years.
The total population grew over last year at its slowest
pace since 2004 was partly due to tightened foreign manpower policies
and weaker economic conditions.
There are now 3.31 million
Singapore citizens, making up about 61 percent of the total population,
the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) said in its annual
Population in Brief report.
Together with 0.53 million permanent
residents (PRs), the total number of residents stands at 3.84 million,
or 71 percent of the total, it added.
Non-residents number about
1.55 million (29 percent of the total population), of them students
accounting for 5 percent; S-Pass holders, 10 percent; Employment Pass
holders, 11 percent; foreign domestic workers, 13 percent; dependants of
citizens/PRs/Workpass holders, 15 percent; and Work Permit holders, 46
percent.
Singapore’s population is ageing. The proportion of
citizens aged 65 years and above increased from 7.8 percent in 2002 to
11.7 percent in 2013. Currently, for each citizen aged 65 and above,
there are 5.5 citizens in the working age band of 20 to 64 years old.
About
30,000 PRs are granted each year since 2009 “to keep the PR population
stable at between 0.5 million and 0.6 million and to ensure a pool of
suitable candidates for citizenship”, said the NPTD.
It added
that over the last five years, about 20,000 people were granted
citizenship each year. “We plan to continue this calibrated rate of
immigration of between 15,000 and 25,000 new citizens each year to keep
our citizen population from shrinking,” NPTD said.-VNA