More Than Numbers

Agence France-Presse - 2/25/2009 4:58 AM GMT

Crisis could cost Singapore 99,000 jobs: DBS

Singapore could lose a total of 99,000 jobs during the current recession, with more than half of the cuts in the key manufacturing sector, an analysis by local bank DBS said Wednesday.

"There will be a net loss of about 99,000 jobs due to the current recession and we also expect this to stretch into 2010", the bank said in its report.

Unemployment is likely to hit 4.8 percent this year and peak at 5.0 percent by the middle of 2010, it said.

"Labour markets are expected to deteriorate further," DBS added.

"The manufacturing sector is expected to be the worst hit with job losses of about 58,000 as the global recession chokes up demand for our manufactured exports."

The bulk of output from Singapore's manufacturing sector ends up as exports to the world's major economies, but recessions in those markets have severely affected local factories.

DBS said it has also downgraded its growth outlook for the city-state to a contraction of 4.8 percent this year from 3.8 percent previously, due to the "sharp collapse in global demand and export sales."

An "aggressive" stimulus package totalling 20.5 billion Singapore dollars (13.4 billion US) will only cushion the blows from the recession, the bank said.

Latest official data in Singapore said the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 2.6 percent in December, and companies laid off 7,000 workers during the last three months of 2008.

Singapore's worst recession occurred in 1964, just before independence, when the economy shrank 3.8 percent.

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Yes, this is indeed depressing. Beyond the fact that there is a recession currently going on, the very nature of this article is hardly cheery.

So we "could lose a total of 99,000 jobs". Well I'm no analyst but I'm quite sure that also means that 99, 000 people could be unemployed for a certain period of time, and 99, 000 families could be nagatively affected by having one less income in the household, or the only income in the household could be gone just like that.

99, 000. Are these mere numbers to you?

I look at the numbers in the article and I refuse to write them off as mere statistics. These are people we are talking about here. People with spouses, children, parents, friends. People with lives.

Someone you know and care about could be unemployed later this year. Perhaps he or she is married, or is in a steady relationship. When he or she is unemployed, plans have to be postponed. Plans have to be changed. Plans have to be cancelled. Everything changes.

Yes, this is a crisis that we are facing. But in the midst of this crisis, lie not numbers, but people.