George Yeo on unhappiness, achievement and Singapore's drive to succeed

SharpPost newsroom | News analysis | 23 September 2026 | Updated 24 September

Asked why Singapore’s wealth might not be matched by happiness, former foreign minister George Yeo offered a qualified answer: “Sometimes unhappiness may be a precondition for achievement.” He was speaking on the Singapore edition of Bloomberg’s The Mishal Husain Show on 22 September, according to AsiaOne’s report.

Yeo recalled public service surveys during his tenure in which the trade and foreign affairs ministries had poor work-life balance but the highest morale. He also recalled Lee Kuan Yew’s advice that governments could promise economic development, infrastructure and education, but could not promise happiness.

His example describes poor work-life balance coexisting with high departmental morale. The qualifications in his remark leave room for circumstances; they do not make lasting unhappiness a requirement for everyone. Extending the discussion to Singapore’s development raises a question about the role of insecurity and vigilance. That is an avenue for analysis, rather than an explicit conclusion in the remarks verified here.

After independence in 1965, Singapore faced unemployment and a small domestic market. The government’s SG101 historical account describes how Britain’s announcement of its military withdrawal in 1967 added urgency to export-led industrialisation. Foreign investment brought production expertise, management knowledge and international sales networks as well as capital. Vocational training, begun in the early 1960s, helped provide workers for the factories.

Vocational training needs to connect with employers’ demand for skills, while attracting production also requires a workforce able to undertake it. Bringing the two together gives individual learning and effort a better chance of translating into income, and helps businesses find the people they need. An explanation of development must therefore account for where opportunities come from and how workers acquire the skills to enter new industries.

By the 1970s, labour shortages were raising costs and industrialisation in neighbouring countries was adding competition. SG101’s account of that period records finance minister Hon Sui Sen’s two-part approach in 1973: attract higher-value manufacturing, including petrochemicals and precision engineering, while improving workers’ skills and productivity. The response changed with the constraint. Raising the value each worker could produce addressed problems that persisting with earlier labour-intensive production could not resolve.

According to PUB’s history of NEWater, studies in the 1970s found water reclamation technically feasible, but cost and unproven reliability remained obstacles. After membrane technology improved, PUB began testing in 1998. Demonstration, testing and expert review preceded the opening of the first two NEWater plants in 2003. Preparation included waiting for workable technology and validating it; urgency alone could not settle those questions.

Export markets, business investment, skills training and technical testing addressed specific constraints. These government accounts provide context for discussing concern about survival, without isolating its contribution to growth. They do not establish that greater unhappiness among the population produces better economic results.

Returning to the interview, host Mishal Husain did not identify the happiness ranking behind her question. The World Happiness Report 2026 places Singapore 36th, based on average life evaluations from 2023 to 2025. That result does not support a simple description of Singapore as one of the world’s unhappiest countries. Nor can one ranking explain its development model. Economic achievements and people’s assessments of their lives each require evidence.

Jobstreet’s workplace study, released in February, found that 72% of happy respondents felt motivated to make an extra effort at work, compared with 13% of unhappy respondents. The full report describes an online survey conducted by Nature for SEEK in October and November 2025 among 1,008 people aged 18–64 who lived in Singapore and were in the employment market. The responses measure motivation, not performance, but show that satisfaction and willingness to contribute can coexist.

Among happy respondents, 41% also reported feeling burnt out or exhausted by their jobs. Satisfaction and strain were present together. Improving the experience of work therefore need not start with lowering ambition. Employers and employees can separately examine the value of an assignment, the opportunities it offers for development and burdens that better scheduling or processes might reduce. The effectiveness of any changes would need to be assessed in particular jobs.

The high morale Yeo recalled deserves consideration in that discussion. High morale is a positive outcome worth understanding. Establishing how it was sustained requires knowing whether employees valued the mission, their colleagues, career opportunities or other conditions. AsiaOne did not provide the original survey’s detailed questions or sample. It is therefore not possible to select one explanation for those ministries, and today’s workplace findings cannot be treated as a rebuttal of their experience.

Under tripartite guidelines effective since 1 December 2024, employers must respond to formal requests for flexible work within two months. TAFEP’s guidance permits rejection on reasonable business grounds, such as substantial additional costs, reduced output or an arrangement being impractical for the role; approval is not guaranteed. Employees’ needs outside work and the operational needs of a business can both be considered when assessing an arrangement.

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s 2026 New Year message also set an explicit goal for the relationship between national progress and individual lives: ensure that Singaporeans benefit from economic advances, while strengthening basic provision in education, housing and healthcare. This is a policy commitment whose delivery requires separate assessment.

Capabilities built in response to risk, whether in industry or water supply, can reduce vulnerability when the same problem arises again. For an individual, the value of training lies in whether it opens better jobs, incomes and choices. For businesses and government, investment needs to deliver more reliable production and services. Examining those results makes it possible to distinguish effort worth sustaining from working methods that can now be improved.