Tue, Apr 02, 2002 page19

• Singapore's expat exodus leaves apartments empty and unsold

  • BLOOMBERG
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  Chris Maiden enjoyed expat life in Singapore -- wearing shorts year-round, taking midnight swims in the condo pool -- until he lost his job writing software.

  With the island mired in recession, he's now heading home.

  "The job market here in Singapore is so slow at the moment it's pointless to stay on a visitor's pass and look for work," said Maiden, a 29-year-old Briton who spent two years working for Kinetech, a unit of brokerage firm Prebon Yamane.

  Foreign banks, chipmakers and other companies in Singapore are cutting expatriate staff as the city-state of 4 million people suffers a slump deeper than the one it faced during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. The cuts are making the recession worse: Foreigners make up a fifth of the workforce, many of them executives on whom Singapore's upscale car showrooms, restaurants and clothing stores rely for business.

  "I have seen an increasing number of people who have been here on an employment pass retrenched," said Elizabeth Dickinson, executive director of the Career Resource Center for Expatriates at the American Association of Singapore.

  Many of the jobs may not come back, even though a US recovery is expected to revive demand for Singapore's electronics exports. Changes in manufacturing are thinning expatriate ranks as China's entry into the WTO threatens to drain investment from Southeast Asia, long a favored locale for the likes of disk-drive maker Seagate Technology Inc and personal-computer company Hewlett-Packard Co.

  "The whole market swapped over to China," said Christian Goeskar, a project manager for German company M+W Zander Holding AG, which makes clean rooms for chip factories.

  After five years in Singapore, Goeskar was transferred to Shanghai last June along with 40 colleagues after several clients delayed or canceled projects. His wife left her job at Deutsche Lufthansa AG, their five-year-old daughter had to quit her school, and they gave up their company car. Instead of the five-bedroom house they enjoyed in Singapore, their new Shanghai home is a two-bedroom apartment.

  Singapore's economy shrank 2 percent last year, the biggest contraction since 1964, after growing more than 10 percent the year before. Even in the depths of the Asian crisis in 1998, annual growth was 0.4 percent.

  With companies laying off workers, the island's unemployment rate rose to a 15-year peak of 4.7 percent in December.

  Foreign banks, hurt by the global slump, have been laying off staff in Singapore, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia. Credit Suisse First Boston fired or transferred 25 employees in the region, including several managing directors. Goldman Sachs Group Inc will cut 12 of 14 investment-banking jobs in Singapore.

  That's bad news for a country that relies on foreign managers and technicians to keep its economy growing. Singapore's government has led the drive to recruit talent from abroad by appointing foreign executives to head government-linked companies such as DBS Group Holdings Ltd, the city's biggest lender, and shipping company Neptune Orient Lines Ltd.

  Signs of the exodus abound, from the notices at the American Club seeking new employers for housekeepers or owners for pets, to the garage sales and "for rent" notices that dot the residential neighborhoods where foreigners live.

  In Holland Village, an expat enclave, sales of German beer have fallen by half at Baden-Baden restaurant. Jasmine Ng, whose gallery sells watercolors of Singapore skyscrapers for as much as S$2,200 (US$1,200), has lost seven of her steady American clients in the past six months.

  "They lost their jobs or were called back home," she said.

  "Business is at least 30 percent slower than last year."

  Of course, foreigners are still coming to Singapore, which remains a regional headquarters for companies from ABB Ltd to Solectron Corp. Yet more are leaving.

  In December and January, moving company K.C. Dat Pte shipped out 123 percent more cargo than it brought in.

  "Looking at enquiries, it seems June, July and August too will see a high outflow," said spokeswoman Kathleen Gian.

  Rents are falling. Lengah Loh, a broker at 8links Pte, estimates rents in expat areas near the shopping malls of Orchard Road have fallen by a fifth in a year. There are few takers for a two-room furnished apartment that's available for S$2,000, he said. "I have just one or two enquiries from expatriates."

  Departing expats are adding to the woes of retailers such as Courts Singapore Ltd, which reported a 13 percent decline in sales of furniture, appliances and other goods in the half-year to Sept. 30. Islandwide, retail sales grew 8.2 percent last year, one third the rate of 2000.

  At the Hollandse Club, where Dutch and other Europeans unwind, more than 150 people have given up their memberships since July, leaving 1,800 members, said manager Ron Davis.

  "Our food and beverage sales are down 15 to 20 percent in the first two months of this year," he said. "Sure, people are still eating -- but in cafeterias, not in fine dining."
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