Arabianbusiness.com, 19 Oct 2008, Jason Gale
Company-paid perks from $17,000-a-month housing allowances to country club memberships may dry up for Singapore's expatriates as the financial crisis heralds new austerity measures by the nation's richest employers.
"Banks are hiring or replacing more cautiously," PricewaterhouseCoopers International (PwC), the world's largest accountancy firm, said in a statement. "Recruitment today is now focused on critical positions to meet business needs."
The cost-cutting measures follow the $636bn of losses and writedowns posted by the world's largest financial institutions since the collapse of the US subprime-mortgage market. Singapore, in its first recession since 2002, forecast last week a slowdown in financial services, an industry that employs about 157,000 of the city's 4.8 million people.
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