SINGAPORE - Singapore's labour chief said on Thursday retrenchments and wage cuts in the city-state are likely if the global downturn continues, state television reported on its website.
"At this moment, there is no sign yet of rising retrenchment," Lim Swee Say, Secretary General of the National Trades Union Congress was quoted as saying by Channel NewsAsia.
The congress is the largest labour union in Singapore.
"However, as the downturn continues, we can expect realistically that the retrenchment may pick up," said Lim, who is also a government minister.
Warning that Singaporeans' wages will also be affected, he said: "Let's accept that there's no guarantee our real wages will not go down. In fact, they are likely to go down but it does not mean the workers will be on their own."
But he said the government and labour movement will, if necessary, support "the lower-wage workers and lower income households through non-wage measures".
Singapore's government eschews welfarism, which it views as bad for work ethics, and instead provides aid for the poor through vouchers and monetary incentives for low-income workers who stay employed, in a scheme dubbed "workfare".
