Singapore’s Non-Traditional Source Occupation List (NTS-OL) is expanding significantly in September 2026, adding eight new occupations across the food and beverage, social services, and air transport sectors. This is not a minor administrative update — it changes which workers employers in these industries are permitted to hire from Non-Traditional Source (NTS) countries, and it opens new hiring corridors that did not previously exist.
If you are an HR manager or business owner in any of these three sectors, or a worker in one of the newly listed roles, here is what the expansion means in practice.
Background: What Is the NTS-OL?
Work Permits for lower-wage foreign workers in Singapore are governed by sector-specific rules, including which source countries employers are permitted to hire from. Singapore designates certain countries as “Traditional Source” countries (such as Malaysia, China, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and others) and others as “Non-Traditional Source” (NTS) countries — which include places like Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Philippines, and others not on the traditional list.
As a general rule, employers in most sectors may only hire Work Permit holders from NTS countries if the occupation appears on the Non-Traditional Source Occupation List. The NTS-OL is therefore the gating mechanism that determines whether a particular job category can be filled from NTS countries.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) reviews and updates the NTS-OL periodically in response to labour market shortages. The September 2026 expansion is the latest such update, focused on three sectors where MOM has identified sustained unmet demand from local and traditional-source hiring alone.
The Eight New Roles
Food and Beverage (Five New Roles)
The F&B sector receives the largest share of new additions, reflecting the persistent difficulty operators face in staffing kitchens and front-of-house positions. The five new F&B roles added to the NTS-OL from September 2026 are:
- Butchers — meat preparation and processing in food service settings
- Fishmongers — fish preparation and counter service in wet market and food service contexts
- Food and drink stall assistants — counter and service support at hawker stalls and small food outlets
- Kitchen assistants — food preparation support roles in restaurant and catering kitchens
- Waiters — front-of-house service in dining establishments
These roles sit at the heart of Singapore’s food and beverage workforce. The inclusion of waiters and food and drink stall assistants in particular signals that MOM is acknowledging the structural staffing gap in everyday F&B operations, not just back-of-house food production.
Social Services (Two New Roles)
The social services sector adds two roles that reflect Singapore’s expanding early childhood care and education system, particularly the push to grow infant and childcare capacity under long-term population and family support policies:
- Babysitters and infant caregivers — direct care of infants and young children in residential and care-centre settings
- Educarers — combined education and care roles in licensed child care centres, typically working under qualified early childhood educators
- Teacher aides — support roles assisting qualified teachers in early childhood or special education settings
The addition of educarers and teacher aides to the NTS-OL is notable because early childhood roles have historically been more tightly controlled in terms of source-country access. The expansion reflects the government’s recognition that qualified local candidates alone cannot fully meet the demand that will accompany new centre openings and mandatory childcare subsidies.
Air Transport (One New Role)
The air transport sector adds one new category:
- Ground-handling and ramp-services workers — aircraft handling, baggage loading, towing, and ramp operations at Singapore Changi Airport and Seletar Airport
The aviation ground-handling sector has faced significant staffing pressure since the post-pandemic recovery in air traffic. The inclusion on the NTS-OL allows ground-handling operators to widen their recruitment to NTS countries, which may ease the chronic shortage of ramp workers that has contributed to baggage-handling delays at peak periods.
What Changes for Employers in These Sectors
If you are an employer in F&B, social services, or air transport and you currently cannot hire Work Permit holders from NTS countries for one of these eight roles, that restriction lifts from September 2026 onward. Specifically:
- You may submit new Work Permit applications for workers from NTS countries in these occupations from the effective date.
- Existing Work Permit holders from NTS countries working in these roles under a different occupational category may benefit from a clearer regulatory pathway — check with MOM if any reclassification is needed.
- The standard Work Permit conditions still apply: Dependency Ratio Ceiling (DRC) quotas, levy rates, and housing obligations do not change as a result of the NTS-OL expansion.
Importantly, NTS-OL inclusion does not mean unlimited hiring. DRC quotas by sector still cap the ratio of Work Permit holders to local employees that any company can maintain. If your company is already at its DRC ceiling, the NTS-OL expansion does not help until you either grow your local headcount or reduce existing foreign worker numbers. See our sector-by-sector breakdown in the foreign worker levy and DRC guide.
What Changes for Workers in These Roles
If you are a foreign worker in one of these eight occupations and you hold the nationality of an NTS country, the September 2026 expansion means Singapore employers in these sectors can now legally apply for a Work Permit on your behalf. Previously, they could only hire you under a Work Permit if they were already permitted to source from your country for that specific role.
This does not automatically change the status of any existing pass or remove any existing barrier. An employer still needs to be properly registered with MOM, maintain a valid Foreign Worker Quota, and comply with all levy obligations. But the legal avenue now exists where it previously did not.
Relationship to the Broader NTS Work Permit Expansion
This September 2026 update is part of a continuing series of NTS expansions. Earlier in 2026, MOM expanded Work Permit eligibility to workers from Bhutan, Cambodia, and Laos for construction and marine shipyard roles — a separate update covered in our guide on NTS country expansion for construction and marine.
Together, these updates reflect a consistent MOM posture: selectively widen access to NTS workers in sectors with demonstrable, persistent manpower shortages, while maintaining DRC controls to ensure Singapore continues to develop a strong local core workforce over the medium term. The NTS-OL is not a blanket open-door policy — it is a targeted, occupation-specific instrument.
Practical Steps for Affected Employers
If you operate in one of the three sectors and want to take advantage of the September 2026 NTS-OL expansion, the key preparation steps are:
- Confirm your DRC headroom: Calculate your current ratio of Work Permit holders to local employees to determine how many additional Work Permits you can apply for. If you are near or at the ceiling, prioritise hiring locals first.
- Verify your MOM registration: Ensure your company is properly registered as an employer of foreign workers and that your Foreign Worker Quota is current.
- Source candidates from NTS countries: Begin recruitment through licensed employment agencies for the relevant NTS source countries. Ensure any agency you use is registered with MOM.
- Apply through Work Permit Online: New Work Permit applications are submitted through MOM’s Work Permit Online portal (WPOL). The application must specify the correct occupation code corresponding to the newly listed role.
- Check levy rates: Confirm the applicable levy rate for the occupation and sector tier. Levy rates vary by sector and by the proportion of NTS workers relative to traditional source workers in your workforce.
Sector Hiring Context: F&B, Social Services, and Air Transport
Each of the three affected sectors has its own manpower dynamics that make this NTS-OL expansion significant in different ways.
In food and beverage, Singapore’s hawker culture and restaurant industry have been under sustained labour pressure since the pandemic. The inclusion of waiters and stall assistants directly addresses the front-of-house shortage that many small operators report as their primary hiring bottleneck. Our detailed F&B sector hiring guide covers the full picture of hiring options for food businesses.
In social services, Singapore’s Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) has set ambitious targets for childcare capacity, and the shortage of infant caregivers and educarers has been an acknowledged constraint. The NTS-OL addition provides operators of licensed childcare centres with new sourcing options, subject to the qualification requirements that ECDA imposes on childcare workers.
In air transport, Changi Airport’s ground-handling operators — including SATS and Swissport — have been managing peak workloads with constrained headcount since passenger volumes recovered and then surpassed pre-pandemic levels. Ramp and ground-handling work is physically demanding and shift-based, making it less attractive to local workers. The NTS-OL expansion gives operators access to a wider labour pool for these roles specifically.
How Singapore Employment Agency Can Help
Singapore Employment Agency (Little Big Employment Agency Pte Ltd) is a licensed employment agency registered with MOM. We assist employers in F&B, social services, air transport, and other sectors with Work Permit recruitment from NTS and traditional source countries — from candidate sourcing and document preparation through to Work Permit application submission and on-boarding support.
For companies that need broader HR compliance support — including Fair Consideration Framework documentation, levy management, and quota monitoring — our sister company Raffles Corporate Services provides end-to-end employer immigration and HR compliance services.
For the full picture on Work Permit rules, eligibility, and processes, see our complete Work Permit guide and our overview of sector hiring across finance, tech, healthcare, F&B, and construction.