Lower-income hit hardest by Covid-19, as better off still buying stocks, homes, cars

Economists see 'K-shaped' recovery with tech, financial services charging ahead; hospitality, aviation limping behind

Kelly Ng

Published Sun, Oct 25, 2020 · 09:50 PM

Singapore

COVID-19 has handed Singapore its deepest recession since the country's independence, but the pain inflicted by the pandemic has been unevenly spread.

Economists have dubbed the crisis as one primed for a "K-shaped" recovery, one where different parts of the economy recover at different rates, different times or different magnitudes. Thus in Singapore, lower-income workers have been hit hard particularly by retrenchments, but there are also others with cash to spare and secure jobs to hang on to.

Egged on by a low interest environment, the latter have been snapping up properties, pushing up property prices; and they are putting money in stocks even as the virus continues to spread.

This has raised the question of whether the pandemic is going to widen the wealth gap in Singapore - a likely fallout of the Covid-19 outbreak that's already being closely watched in other parts of the world. And, along with the impact of the structural shift in parts of the economy, how far will the gap wid…