With tech, more firms realise they can operate with fewer employees
Job seekers must be flexible and have unique skills, says industry player
Sales manager Annie Muliani, 43, got retrenched after Singapore moved to Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (Dorscon) Orange on Feb 7.
Her company told the mother of four she had to go because of the drop in business from the Covid-19 situation.
Ms Annie, who had worked in the lifestyle sector, has been looking for a stable job, but many companies are not replying to her applications.
Manpower industry players said not only are organisations not hiring, they realise they can operate with fewer workers.
And this trend will likely continue as many work from home, making it harder for job seekers like Ms Annie to get hired.
So far, preliminary figures show there have been 3,000 retrenchments in the first quarter of 2020, and the situation is expected to worsen with between 150,000 and 200,000 retrenchments this year, said Maybank Kim Eng economists.
And as more companies turn to technology to save their businesses, they are finding having to rely less and less on people.
Recruitment and human resources agency BGC Group operations director Wong Chin Lam told The New Paper: "This pandemic has made many companies realise that many things can be done digitally."
For example, insurance, food and beverage, and call centres are some of the industries doing more with robotic automation and artificial intelligence (AI).
Mr Lam said some customer service call centres have either been replaced by AI or have been outsourced. And as companies develop business continuity plans that centre around working from home, some operations can be completely automated.
He added: "However, many businesses will choose to use these technologies to aid their employees instead of simply cutting them out of the picture.
“Retrenching workers is usually a last resort in order to reduce expenses and maintain reasonable cash flow, especially when there is a severe reduction for their products or services at this time."
Virtual telco Circles.Life head of people and culture Alex Nicolaus said tech could include self-ordering kiosks seen at fast-food restaurants.
He said: "One of the biggest takeaways from the whole experience is that the circuit breaker measures have reinvented the way people work and allow many companies to innovate and rethink their business contingency plans."
On Monday, Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing had said some companies need to rethink their business model for longer-term sustainability.
ManpowerGroup Singapore country manager Linda Teo said: "Companies are experiencing a drastic drop in business demand and hence require fewer people now."
FLEXIBLE
BGC Group client relationship director Victor Lai said to remain competitive, job seekers need to be flexible to explore beyond existing industries and possess unique skills.
He said BGC Group has seen several candidates with engineering or computer science backgrounds enter the financial services.
The job market has made job seekers, like Ms Annie, anxious.
She said: "If I have no income, how am I going to feed my kids and pay the bills? My husband also received a pay cut as his business had to close during the circuit breaker period."
Ms Annie added that she was worried about her eldest daughter's job prospects as she had just graduated from a polytechnic.
Fresh graduates must be more realistic when applying for jobs, said Mr Lai.
He said given the gloomy climate, the 50,000 local fresh graduates in this year's workforce should revise their starting salary expectations from $3,500 a month to a more realistic $2,800.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now