Singapore is likely to experience its worst ever recession and may lose 99,000 jobs by mid-2010, a DBS Bank report said Wednesday."Policy measures that have been put forth so far will help to cushion the blows but the worst of the labour market cycle is yet to come," the DBS researchers warned.
On account of the sharp collapse in global demand and export sales, Singapore's economy is likely to experience its worst ever growth rate this year with a GDP contraction of 4.8 per cent. DBS Bank estimated that Singapore's unemployment rate could rise steadily to 4.8 per cent by the end of 2009 and could peak at about 5 per cent by mid-2010.
"This will be the highest level of unemployment rate in recent years but lower than the peak of 6.5 per cent registered during the manufacturing recession in 1985-86," the report said. About 73,100 Singapore residents were jobless in December 2008, an increase of about 58 per cent on a year-to-year basis.
In January, the Singapore government presented a 20.5-billion-Singapore-dollar (13.74-billion-US-dollar) "resilience package" for financial year 2009 and introduced a Jobs Credit scheme, both focusing on preserving jobs and supporting businesses. Yet despite these measures "higher unemployment and more job losses will be inevitable," the report said. DBS is one of the biggest financial services groups in Asia and Singapore's largest bank measured by assets.
Comments
Comments are closed.