June 2014

As one of our four primary recruitment locations, Singapore is the focus of our June newsletter. Over the last decade Singapore has grown as a prominent global hub for financial services. The Lion City has a low tax rate, ranks highly on ease of doing business and is pro foreign investment.

While growth hiring in Singapore has cooled a little over the past few years the city remains an important strategic location for many of our clients. Over the years the Singapore Governmentseems to have oscillated between a relatively loose immigration policy to being quite restrictive. Singapore maintains a low unemployment rate of 2.9% for residents and 3.0% for citizens.

The Singaporean government is actually deferring $2bn worth of construction projects, intent to slow down the influx of foreign workers and manage the country’s population. Also interesting is the new employment measure being introduced by the government on 1st August (the Fair Consideration Framework), which states that all positions under SG$144k (AUD$123k) must be advertised to Singaporeans only for 14 days before being promoted elsewhere. This is unlikely to have a big impact on most financial services roles, but it again shows the Singapore government’s plans to protect local employees.

The first quarter of 2014 saw Singapore’s economy grow by 4.9% year-on-year. Growth is estimated to be between 2% and 4% for 2014 and is primarily being led by the manufacturing, construction, wholesale/retail and finance sectors.

Tourism still remains important to the Singaporean economy, despite the 2013 change to Chinese tourism laws which has seen a decline in the numbers of Chinese tours heading abroad.

Upcoming industry events in Singapore include the Asia Trade Finance Week in September this year, as will the World Finance & Business Conference in December.

In Singapore? Keep an eye out for driverless cars in Sentosa in the near future. They are in talks with MIT to roll out a trial in Singapore.

Perfect for a good quality business lunch, Restaurant André was recently named Singapore’s best restaurant for the second year in the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list for 2014. Located in a 19th century terraced house, Restaurant André is heralded for its delicate southern French cuisine and has been on the radar of the international press, including the New York Times, for a few years.