Twice as many Hong Kong employers have laid off staff compared with their Singapore peers as Covid-19 eats into bottom line, surveys find
- Far fewer employers in Singapore have laid off staff to cut costs than their peers in Hong Kong, Comptify Analytics says
- Trend suggests more optimism of a Singapore rebound than in Hong Kong, which was already reeling from political crisis
Twice as many Hong Kong employers have laid off staff compared with their Singaporean counterparts to cut costs during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to surveys conducted by Comptify Analytics.
The results of the survey of 86 companies in Singapore, released last week, showed that just 8 per cent had resorted to terminating staff to protect their bottom line since the coronavirus outbreak. In Hong Kong, however, 16 per cent of the 140 companies surveyed late last month had made staff redundant.
Similarly, 8 per cent of Singaporean firms had furloughed staff or placed them on compulsory unpaid leave, compared to 17 per cent of companies in Hong Kong.
“Singapore is tending to apply less ‘destructive measures’ including furlough and redundancy to employment when it comes to cost saving at this stage,” said Vincent Fung, managing consultant for Comptify Analytics. This suggests “cautious optimism of an economic rebound for the Singapore market.”
in addition, some industries in Hong Kong, for example tourism and luxury retail, may be expecting a longer-term downturn or even secular decline, due to the pandemic as well as the prolonged social unrest, Fung added. “Therefore, some companies have started to reshape their business operations to embrace the change.”