Jobs, jobs, jobs

JOB cuts here are gaining momentum after several multinational companies began bracing themselves for lean times.

Up to 750 staff here are said to have been laid off by IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture between chip-making heavyweights Intel and Micron Technology. And both Motorola and American Express have informed local staff that job losses are looming as part of global cuts.

Plans for a wafer fabrication plant which was to have been operated by IM Flash have been postponed indefinitely. As a result, most of the 750 staff, mostly non-Singaporeans, are reported to have been retrenched.

INSURER AIA Singapore laid off about 20 employees from two of its divisions on Thursday as part of its efforts to trim fat.

The affected employees included chief marketing officer Lance Tay, who oversaw the Life Profit Centre (LPC), and Mr Stanz Tan, the head of LPC and AIA's vice-president.

Sources said that Thursday's cuts are unlikely to be the last among the 800-strong workforce. It is believed that there will be more job losses, either through retrenchment, re-deployment, outsourcing or natural attrition. There are no plans to reduce its life agency strength.

THE impact of the global economic slowdown is showing in three key engines powering Singapore's economy, according to preliminary figures released yesterday on the employment situation here.

Although the unemployment rate held steady at 2.2 per cent, the manufacturing, services and construction sectors added 20 per cent fewer jobs in the last quarter as the employment outlook darkened in response to the current financial crisis.

Echoing the view of other analysts who point to a time lag before the global downturn's full impact hits home, Standard Chartered Bank economist Alvin Liew said of the Manpower Ministry's report on employment in the third quarter: 'We have not seen the worst.'

Filipinos fear fall in remittances
by Alastair McIndoe, Philippines Correspondent

MANILA: In Mondragon, a hardscrabble fishing village on the Philippines' typhoon-prone eastern seaboard, the Rosel family anxiously follows the United States' economic turmoil on the television news.

For the past 15 years, their meagre household income has been boosted by money sent by an aunt working as a cashier in Washington. Those funds have helped put eight children through school and paid for family emergencies.

'Our aunt is now thinking of returning home and starting a small business,' said Ms Rose Rosel. 'She's worried things will get worse over there.'

Outsourcing may still mean big business

MANILA: Until the meltdown on Wall Street, the main worry for call centre managers here was how to reel in more English-speaking graduates and keep them hooked to their headsets.

But with most of the outsourcing industry's revenue coming from the United States - a big chunk of that from financial services - things are not looking too rosy.

Mr Mitch Locsin, executive director of the Business Process Association of the Philippines, said fewer potential investors are scouting for outsourcing locations.

Indian firms set to cut one in four jobs
by P. Jayaram, India Correspondent

NEW DELHI: India's economy, clocking average growth of close to 9 per cent the past five years, looked immune from job losses.

But now an Indian industry body has come out with a shocker: Indian companies, it said, are set to fire more than 25 per cent of their work force over the next 10 days.

India's so-called 'organised sector' employs some 40 million people, and it was not made clear if the lobby group meant that a quarter of them would be jobless.

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