SINGAPORE, Jan 20, 2009 (AFP) – Tiny
Singapore’s population is expected to decline by 200,000 as
companies lay off a massive number of foreign workers during a
worsening recession, Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse said.
the job cuts, which would include highly-paid expatriates and
permanent residents, will hurt domestic consumption and help push
the economy into its sharpest decline since independence in 1965,
said the report received by AFP on Tuesday. A
loss of 200,000 jobs would amount to more than four percent of the
population. Credit Suisse said the economic slowdown in the
trade-sensitive city-state had so far been driven by a sharp
decline in exports, while domestic demand held up. But for this
year, “consumption growth should also slow, in part because of our
expectation that Singapore’s population will potentially drop by
200,000 by 2010” due to job losses, it said.
“Historically, Singapore’s foreign population has tended to expand
during high growth periods and contract during recessionary
periods,” the report said.
“Given the strong foreigner population growth in recent years, this
trend is unlikely to change in this downturn.” Of the 800,000 jobs
created from 2004 to the third quarter of last year, Credit Suisse
estimated that more than 500,000 were filled by foreigners and
permanent residents.
About 200,000 of those jobs were in manufacturing and almost
another 200,000 were in the financial and business services. Most
of these jobs were filled by expatriate workers who earn more than
the average Singaporean, it said. “As a result, job losses are
likely to hit the Singaporean economy hard because they affect more
highly paid workers and could result in a semi-permanent drop in
the population,” the report said.
As of mid-2008, Singapore had a total estimated population of 4.84
million people, including 3.64 million citizens and permanent
residents, Statistics Department data showed. The rest, more than
one million, are foreign workers and their families.
With the impact of falling domestic demand exacerbating declining
exports, the economy was likely to contract by 2.8 percent this
year, Credit Suisse said.
This would leave the economy in its worse shape ever, after 2001
when it shrank by 2.4 percent.
The economy grew 1.5 percent last year compared with 7.7 percent in
2007.
Despite the expected layoffs, Singapore’s Acting Minister for
Manpower Gan Kim Yong said the city-state would still need overseas
labour.
Gan said that foreign workers allowed Singapore companies to remain
globally competitive and contributed to keeping jobs within the
country.
“If companies become uncompetitive in Singapore, they may decide to
relocate to other countries and we will lose more jobs. This will
be a lose-lose outcome,” he said in parliament Monday.
THIS IS GOOD NEWS IN THE MIDST OF A
GLOOM!!!!
200K is not enough we have to cut more maybe a million will make
the mrt less congested
