http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/...14052,00.html?
Published January 14, 2009
Singaporeans paint gloomy picture of jobs, prospects
By TEH SHI NING
SINGAPOREANS are not optimistic about employment prospects in 2009, according to a survey by TNS and Gallup International.
The Voice of the People end-of-year survey, carried out between October and December last year, found that 78 per cent of 1,000 people polled here expect unemployment to rise this year. And 37 per cent expect it to 'increase a lot'.
Among respondents here who were employed, 30 per cent are concerned they could lose their job this year.
There is also pessimism about finding new employment in the event of losing a job. Seventy-nine per cent of respondents here fear it would take 'too long', compared with 54 per cent of respondents from all 46 countries in the survey.
Only 17 per cent of Singaporeans believe they would be able to land a new job 'fairly quickly', a figure more pessimistic than the worldwide average of 31 per cent.
Singaporeans' pessimism extends beyond the labour market to the general economy too, going by the survey results. Seventy-seven per cent of Singaporeans expect the nation's economic prosperity to decline this year.
On a more personal level, 63 per cent anticipate that 2009 will be worse for them than 2008, compared with the global average of 35 per cent of respondents who feel this way.
According to the Ministry of Manpower, Singapore's seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate in September 2008 was 2.2 per cent, while the resident unemployment rate was 3.3 per cent. An update on employment is due at the end of this month.