Fact-checked against primary sources: Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) newsroom releases and parliamentary replies, and a December 2025 peer-reviewed cross-sectional study on nursing home staff. Last verified August 2026.

Singapore’s nurse attrition rate fell from 14.5% among foreign nurses in the pandemic-era peak of 2022 to roughly 7–9% by 2025 — a rate Singapore’s Health Minister has publicly described as “healthy.” That makes Singapore an outlier in this series: most countries we’ve covered are actively fighting a worsening crisis. Singapore’s own government data says the opposite is happening, at least in its public hospital system.

But that headline number hides a real, documented exception. A December 2025 peer-reviewed study of nursing home staff found moderate-to-high intention to leave, concentrated specifically among nursing aides and mid-career staff — a distinct, ongoing retention problem in long-term care that the hospital-sector success story doesn’t reach. Below are the 20 nurse retention statistics for Singapore that matter most in 2026, sourced directly from MOH’s own newsroom releases, parliamentary replies, and peer-reviewed nursing home research — not secondary aggregators.

Nurse Retention Statistics Singapore at a Glance

  1. 50,389 — total nurses and midwives in Singapore as of 2024, up from 43,772 in 2022

  2. 14.5% — attrition rate among foreign nurses in 2022, the pandemic-era peak

  3. ~7% — the overall healthcare-cluster nurse attrition rate by 2025, described by Singapore’s Health Minister as “healthy”

  4. 900+ — nursing job vacancies across Singapore’s public hospitals in the most recent three-month period reported

  5. S$100,000 — maximum payout available to nurses over 20 years under the ANGEL retention scheme, launched September 2024

  6. 29,000 — nurses in the public healthcare system eligible for the ANGEL retention scheme

  7. 8 in 10 — nursing graduates from local Institutes of Higher Learning who remain in the profession

  8. 20% — projected growth in Singapore’s overall healthcare workforce, from 129,000 in 2024 to about 156,000 by 2030

  9. 9.18 — mean Intention-to-Leave Scale score among Singapore nursing home staff, indicating moderate overall intention to leave

  10. 4 years — minimum continuous service foreign nurses must complete before becoming eligible for ANGEL scheme payouts

Nurse Retention Statistics Singapore: The Hospital-Sector Success Story

  1. Singapore’s total nurse and midwife headcount grew from 43,772 in 2022 to 50,389 in 2024 — a 15.1% increase in just two years, with public-sector nursing specifically growing from 27,512 to 32,054 over the same period.

  2. Foreign nurse attrition fell sharply from 14.5% in 2022 to a range MOH and independent reporting describe as 7–9% by 2023–2025 — a decline Singapore’s National University of Singapore nursing academic Prof Sok Ying Liaw and government officials both attribute to a combination of post-pandemic normalization and deliberate retention policy.

  3. Singapore’s Health Minister has explicitly characterized the current healthcare-cluster-wide attrition rate of around 7% as “healthy” — a strikingly different framing from every other country profiled in this series, where officials describe comparable or lower rates as crisis-level.

  4. MOH’s own newsroom states the current healthcare workforce is “broadly adequate” for the population’s healthcare demand, with the Ministry citing low vacancy rates in public hospitals as supporting evidence for this assessment. [web:345]

  5. Even so, MOH reported more than 900 nursing job vacancies across public hospitals in the most recent three-month reporting period — a real, acknowledged gap that coexists with the “broadly adequate” framing, since 900 vacancies against roughly 32,000 public-sector nurses represents a vacancy rate under 3%, low by the standards of most other countries in this series.

Nurse Retention Statistics Singapore: The ANGEL Retention Scheme

  1. Singapore’s Ministry of Health launched the ANGEL (Award for Nurses’ Grace, Excellence and Loyalty) scheme in September 2024, offering nurses in public healthcare institutions up to S$100,000 in payouts over a 20-year career — one of the most direct, large-scale financial retention interventions documented anywhere in this series.

  2. Newly recruited nurses and those under age 46 receive payouts of S$20,000 to S$30,000 every four to six years, structured specifically to reward long-term career commitment rather than a single signing bonus.

  3. Nurses aged 46 and above with at least five years of service receive an immediate recognition payout of S$5,000 to S$15,000, acknowledging that older, longer-serving nurses have less career runway remaining to reach the scheme’s later milestones.

  4. Foreign nurses become eligible for ANGEL payouts after four years of continuous service in Singapore’s public healthcare sector — a threshold explicitly designed to incentivize the international nursing workforce to commit to a longer tenure rather than departing after a short contract.

  5. The scheme covers roughly 29,000 nurses currently in the public system, plus all newly recruited nurses going forward, and extends beyond hospitals to nurses working in Voluntary Welfare Organisations and community care organisations — a broader reach than a hospital-only program would have achieved.

Nurse Retention Statistics Singapore: The Graduate Pipeline

  1. About 8 in 10 nursing graduates from local Institutes of Higher Learning remain in the nursing profession, according to MOH’s own April 2026 parliamentary reply — meaning roughly 2 in 10 leave the profession or don’t continue practicing within the period MOH tracked. [web:346]

  2. MOH used this retention data specifically to justify adjusting nursing school intake numbers for 2030 workforce targets — a rare instance of a health ministry publicly tying its education-pipeline sizing decisions directly to a measured graduate retention rate, rather than treating enrollment and retention as separate planning tracks. [web:346]

  3. Singapore recorded record growth in newly registered and enrolled nurses in 2024, according to CNA’s reporting on the country’s retention strategy — suggesting the pipeline expansion and retention improvements have been moving in the same direction simultaneously, rather than one offsetting the other. [web:351]

Nurse Retention Statistics Singapore: The Nursing Home Exception

  1. A December 2025 peer-reviewed cross-sectional study of Singapore nursing home staff found a mean Intention-to-Leave Scale score of 9.18 (SD 2.494), indicating moderate overall intention to leave — a meaningfully different picture from the hospital-sector attrition improvements MOH has publicized. [web:357]

  2. Female staff, mid-career professionals aged 30 to 39, and nursing aides specifically showed the highest turnover intentions among all groups studied — a precise, actionable risk profile distinct from the broader “young nurses leave first” pattern documented in several other countries in this series. [web:357]

  3. Job satisfaction — particularly staffing adequacy and managerial support — emerged as the strongest predictor of intention to leave in the nursing home study, echoing findings from Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the UAE research in this series that management quality and staffing levels outweigh pay alone as retention drivers. [web:357]

  4. The study’s authors explicitly recommend interventions targeting staffing levels, managerial support, and career development pathways to reduce turnover intention among Singapore’s nursing home workforce — a direct, evidence-based counterpoint to treating Singapore’s overall “healthy” attrition figure as evidence the retention problem is fully solved nationwide. [web:357]

Nurse Retention Statistics Singapore: Compassion Fatigue in High-Intensity Care Settings

  1. Palliative care specifically shows higher attrition than the broader healthcare sector, according to a Singapore physician quoted in CNA reporting, attributed to the “high demand of compassion” the role requires on a sustained basis. [web:362]

  2. Healthcare experts describe compassion fatigue in Singapore as existing on a spectrum extending to physical burnout, a distinct psychological pattern from general workplace stress, tied specifically to the emotional intensity of caring for patients with terminal or high-acuity conditions over time. [web:362]

Nurse Retention Statistics Singapore: Workforce Growth Context

  1. Singapore’s total healthcare workforce is projected to grow 20%, from 129,000 in 2024 to about 156,000 by 2030, accounting for evolving care models and growth areas such as community nursing — a demand-side figure that frames why retention gains matter even as headcount grows: a larger target workforce requires sustaining today’s improved attrition rate at a much bigger scale, not just today’s headcount. [web:345]

Why Nurse Retention Statistics in Singapore Tell Two Different Stories

Singapore’s retention data isn’t contradictory so much as it describes two different care settings with genuinely different outcomes:

  • Public hospital and overall healthcare-cluster data (MOH) shows a clear improvement trend: attrition falling from a 14.5% pandemic-era peak to a “healthy” roughly 7% by 2025, workforce headcount growing, and a well-funded, large-scale retention scheme now in its second full year of payouts. [web:347][web:351][web:355]

  • Nursing home and long-term care data (the December 2025 peer-reviewed study) shows a distinct, ongoing retention risk, driven by staffing adequacy and managerial support rather than the broader post-pandemic dynamics that improved hospital-sector attrition. [web:357]

  • Collapsing these into a single “Singapore nurse retention” statistic would be misleading either way. Citing only the 7% hospital figure would understate the documented nursing home risk; citing only the nursing home intention-to-leave score would understate the genuine, government-verified improvement in the much larger public hospital system.

This pattern — a national aggregate hiding a specific, worse-off subsector — echoes findings from Hong Kong’s aged care sector and the UAE’s emergency/maternity units elsewhere in this series, reinforcing that setting-specific data matters even in countries where the topline national trend looks positive.

What the Evidence Says Is Working, and What Still Needs Attention

  • The ANGEL scheme’s multi-milestone structure appears well-designed for long-term commitment, since it pays out repeatedly across a 20-year career rather than front-loading a single bonus that does nothing to prevent mid-career departure — directly addressing the same mid-career attrition risk period the nursing home study separately identified as highest-risk. [web:355][web:357]

  • Extending ANGEL-equivalent structured incentives to nursing home and community care staff specifically could address the one subsector where Singapore’s own peer-reviewed research shows a persistent gap, since the current scheme’s core structure already reaches Voluntary Welfare Organisations and community care organisations. [web:363][web:357]

  • Nursing home management should prioritize staffing adequacy and managerial support directly, per the study’s own explicit recommendation, since these — not compensation — emerged as the strongest predictors of intention to leave in that specific setting. [web:357]

  • Sustaining the graduate retention rate (roughly 8 in 10) will matter more as the workforce target scales toward 156,000 by 2030 — even a stable retention percentage requires proportionally larger absolute numbers of nurses staying in the profession as the target workforce grows. [web:346][web:345]

  • Compassion fatigue in palliative and high-acuity care settings deserves setting-specific mental health support, distinct from general burnout programs, given healthcare experts’ own description of it as a distinct psychological pattern tied to sustained emotional demand rather than workload alone. [web:362]

Compassion fatigue and burnout risk are documented, setting-specific concerns in Singapore’s healthcare workforce, particularly in palliative care and nursing homes, even as the broader hospital-sector attrition trend has genuinely improved. [web:362][web:357] Employer-led staffing reform, structured retention incentives like ANGEL, and licensed clinical mental health support remain the primary tools for addressing burnout where it persists. Some facilities may also explore complementary, non-clinical wellbeing resources to supplement licensed care — remote sessions such as Ne Ste Al Mind Reprogramming, for example, as one additional layer alongside employer-provided support, not instead of it. Ne Ste Al does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical or psychiatric condition, and individual results vary; nurses experiencing burnout or clinical symptoms should consult a licensed healthcare provider first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Singapore experiencing a nurse retention crisis?

Not at the national hospital-sector level, based on Singapore’s own government data. Attrition fell from 14.5% among foreign nurses in 2022 to roughly 7% by 2025, a rate the Health Minister has publicly called “healthy,” and MOH describes the current workforce as broadly adequate for demand. However, a December 2025 peer-reviewed study found a distinct, moderate-to-high intention to leave among nursing home staff specifically. [web:347][web:351][web:357]

What is the ANGEL scheme and how does it help retain nurses?

ANGEL (Award for Nurses’ Grace, Excellence and Loyalty) is a Singapore government retention scheme launched in September 2024, offering public healthcare nurses up to S$100,000 in payouts over a 20-year career, with milestone payments every four to six years. It covers about 29,000 nurses, including those in community care settings, and foreign nurses become eligible after four years of continuous service. [web:355][web:358][web:361]

Which part of Singapore’s healthcare system has the biggest retention problem?

Nursing homes and long-term care show the clearest documented retention risk. A December 2025 study found nursing aides and mid-career staff aged 30 to 39 had the highest turnover intentions, driven primarily by staffing adequacy and managerial support rather than pay. [web:357]

How many nursing graduates in Singapore actually stay in the profession?

About 8 in 10 nursing graduates from local Institutes of Higher Learning remain in nursing, according to MOH’s April 2026 parliamentary reply. MOH has used this figure directly to inform adjustments to nursing school intake targets for 2030. [web:346]

Does burnout affect Singapore’s nurses even with improving attrition numbers?

Yes, particularly in high-intensity settings. Healthcare experts describe compassion fatigue — existing on a spectrum toward physical burnout — as more pronounced in palliative care specifically, due to the sustained emotional demands of that role, even as broader sector-wide attrition has improved. [web:362]

Related

Nurse Retention Statistics South Korea 2026
Nurse Shortage Statistics UAE 2026
Nurse Retention Statistics UAE 2026

Sources

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