Jasmin Lau on pushing harder on flexible work, ‘hot seat’ portfolio of manpower and AI

SINGAPORE – The Manpower Ministry (MOM) must “do a lot more” to push flexible work arrangements, such as by shining the light on good employers and workplace culture, said Acting Manpower Minister Jasmin Lau. 

Parents have told her that while such policies – including childcare leave – exist, it can be difficult to ask or apply for them.

The hesitation is not that they are not allowed to take the leave, but because they are committed to their work and find it hard to get their colleagues to take over, she added.

As a mother of two boys who is also figuring out the tensions between work and caregiving, Lau said she connects with the issue personally.

“I always tell them, I fully understand how you feel, and it makes me understand better why policies themselves are not enough,” she said.

In her first interview with local media since taking the helm at MOM in July’s Cabinet reshuffle, Lau said her own experience as a working mother has been “sometimes a bit painful and a bit of a struggle”.

“It also makes the job a lot more real, and makes me feel like I really need to do something for the working parents,” she said. 

Guidelines on flexible work arrangements were put in place in 2024, and set out a process for workers to request accommodations like working from different locations or at different timings. 

An MOM report released in May said that while the share of employees who received a flexible work arrangement they required was 84.5%, the rate at which workers request such arrangements are low.

Reflecting on her roughly 18 months in politics, Lau said she had no idea beforehand which portfolios she would receive.

As it turned out, her current ambit of workforce transformation and artificial intelligence strategy is “extremely hot” and very relevant to what people want to understand, she said.

The former senior civil servant, who entered politics at the 2025 general election, is also Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information (MDDI).

The pressures are high, she admitted.

On one hand, she can see how fast the technology is moving. On the other hand, workforce policies cannot be done overnight and that “does put a lot of stress on me”.

“But I think this is a good arrangement overall – you have to see both sides of the same coin,” she said.

Lau noted that many firms here currently use AI in areas like digital marketing, but have yet to use it deep in their business processes such as for inventory management, warehousing, and just-in-time delivery.

This is partly why workers here have not been so affected yet, she said. 

Lau said her role involves getting more companies to use AI deeply, as doing so would mean they would be positioned to thrive in the global economy.

But she is also “conflicted daily” on what this would mean for affected workers, and is why firms need to do things like job redesign.

The recent retrenchments at GovTech have provided some learning points, said Lau, who is also minister-in-charge of the MDDI agency.

For instance, while MOM calls on employers to provide early notifications of retrenchments, it is also not good for workers to have a long transition period that “weighs on them every single day”.

Retrenchment experiences are also highly personal and emotional, and workers who may not want to tap on career support right away may simply need some time to process the news before coming back later for help, she added.

Lau said her own journey with AI use has evolved since her initial excitement about building her own applications.

In February, she told Parliament she had used AI to code a dinosaur-themed app for her children. 

Now, while she continues to use it for work, there are some parts of her life where she wants to keep AI out. 

“You can build an agent now to help you buy groceries, order RedMart. I tried to do one that helps me book badminton courts for the kids to have badminton classes,” she said.

“And then I started to feel that actually I don’t need to, and that it’s okay – I can go to NTUC (FairPrice) and pick the apples myself.” 

The 43-year-old said she is often asked by other mothers how she handles the pace of her job and the demands of family.

“I actually tell them very honestly: ‘Don’t believe all you see on social media’.

“Life is exhausting on all days for me, and this idea of work-life balance that can keep the working mother happy and healthy is very, very hard to achieve,” she said.

There are days where she slips: school performances are missed, and she has to catch up via videos from her husband. “Those are not great days.”

One thing she misses is taking the MRT with her children on the weekends, with no destination in mind.

She said: “You can get off, get on, you can eat any time. That freedom, that feeling that you don’t have to structure an end or start to it – actually was beautiful.”

What keeps her going is conviction about the work and love for her children, she said.

“That keeps you, day to day, waking up and still putting one foot in front of the other,” she said. 

“That’s the journey we are on – not some kind of a nice, figured-out equilibrium.”