Grim times for fresh grads as pandemic hits job opportunities

Singapore

UNIVERSITY career fairs are going online, internships are run remotely, and the government is rolling out wage and training subsidies to hire locals.

But despite all these safety measures amid the Covid-19 pandemic, job market watchers warn that it will be a difficult season for those who enter the workforce this year.

With employment outlook all but certain to take a hit from economic decline, "this would likely affect hiring of fresh graduates", Yeo May-Fung, director of the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) Centre for Career Readiness, told The Business Times.

Ms Yeo added that the extent of the impact may be seen only with time. Yet the lessons from the Great Recession of 2009 are grim, and early signs of rot are already showing.

Recruitment portal Indeed said its job postings fell by 14.9 per cent year on year in early April, while Microsoft-owned LinkedIn reported that "hiring growth in Singapore has been on a gradual decline since February".

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The labour market had 52,700 vacancies at end-2019 - or 84 openings for every 100 jobless people. Economists such as Maybank Kim Eng's Chua Hak Bin and Lee Ju Ye also expect unemployment to spiketo 5 per cent or more, from 2.3 per cent in 2019.

To be sure, concerted efforts are under way to find places for undergraduates on the cusp of graduation.

The SGUnited Traineeships Programme was unveiled in February's Budget. While full details of the initiative are not yet available, the government has committed to co-fund training allowances for up to 8,000 fresh graduates seeking work experience.

"Jobs that are parked under the scheme could be civil service jobs, or offered by government-linked companies, and on a part-time or contract basis," said DBS economist Irvin Seah. "Whatever the kind of jobs that will be created, it's better than nothing."

Singapore's central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, is also dangling a grant of S$2,000 a month - double the usual sum - for each local fresh grad or mid-career professional taken on at financial institutions that hire a minimum number of citizens.

Varsities here have even shifted recent career fairs online, with some 3,900 jobs and internships up for grabs at a National University of Singapore (NUS) event held in end-March. The Singapore Management University (SMU), which held a virtual career fair on March 27, is planning at least two more, in May and September.

At SMU, where students must complete an internship to graduate, Sim Cher Young, director of the Dato' Kho Hui Meng Career Centre told BT that the university has also thrown its weight behind letting work-from-home stints fulfil the requirement.

SMU is now carrying out career coaching sessions online, while NUS and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) are ramping up resources to train students for virtual - rather than face-to-face - job interviews.

All the same, Andrew Rose, dean of NUS Business School, has told industry partners that graduating students' "employment prospects now look bleak", with some students already having job offers rescinded. In an e-mail circulating online, Dr Rose appealed to the industry to "consider whether you or your organisation are able to use a highly subsidised, soon-to-graduate" employee. BT understands that he was referring to government wage subsidy schemes.

And, acknowledging that the job hunt may take longer than usual, an NTU spokesperson told BT that graduating students are urged to "consider diversifying their job search and be open-minded to opportunities".

One concern is that, even if they manage to land jobs, graduates who aren't choosy may eventually see their careers haunted by a mismatch. For example, a software engineer with a prolonged stint in customer service might struggle to return to engineering, noted labour market watcher Walter Theseira, an associate professor of economics at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

While he expects fresh graduates to apply for entry-level roles that will not put them in competition with retrenched job seekers, Prof Theseira also said that "a bad résumé can be worse than a fresh degree" if they remain persistently under-employed. "There are structural reasons why graduating into a recession tends to have lasting damage... Research shows that the harm goes away with time, but there is uncertainty about whether there is permanent scarring."

On the salary front, Nilay Khandelwal, managing director at recruiter Michael Page Singapore, warned that graduates should brace themselves for a "slightly lower" pay scale, especially if they enter hard-hit sectors such as tourism, dining or retail.

Fresh grads in full-time jobs earned a median gross wage of S$3,600 last year, up from S$3,500 in 2018, according to autonomous universities' joint employment survey.

But, citing research on recessions in the US, James Miles, managing director at RGF Talent Solutions Singapore, told BT: "The looming economic downturn will deeply affect starting pay... as annual salaries are expected to decrease by 10 per cent."

All the same, Mr Khandelwal called the pandemic an extraordinary event and predicted: "When everything comes back to some normalcy, we anticipate exponential hiring."

To turn around quickly when the crisis is over, "organisations need to maintain a long-term perspective and not lose sight of the company's workforce needs", said Martijn Schouten, PwC's South-east Asian people and organisation consulting leader.

DBS' Mr Seah said: "If the economy is able to bounce back, that's where jobs will be created," adding that a growth rebound will be "more than enough to mop up whatever excess manpower you have in the market".

READ MORE: Large firms still hiring graduate trainees