Jobseeker torn over offer with 50% pay cut after 8 months of unemployment

SINGAPORE: How long would you wait for the “right” job to come along? A Singaporean man is facing a tough decision after being out of work for the past eight months: should he accept a job offer that pays him almost 50 per cent less than what he used to earn, or keep holding out and continue job hunting in hopes that something better will come along?

In a post shared on the r/askSingapore subreddit on Tuesday (June 18), the man opened up about his situation, explaining that the job search hasn’t been easy. Over the past few months, he has sent out hundreds of applications and attended a handful of interviews, but only recently received a single job offer.

The offer, however, comes with a catch: it pays about S$4,000 a month, which is a huge drop from his previous salary of around S$7,000.

Asking fellow users for their thoughts, he wrote: “Should I settle for lower pay in this struggling economy? Should I take the job first and find higher-paying jobs later? Or reject and hope a better offer will come?

“In a dilemma right now. I don’t want to take the job just to quit later on.”

“S$4k still better than S$0.”

In the discussion thread, one Singaporean Redditor said, “Pick up the experience. It will get you a better-paying job later. Been there, done that, and I made up for the salary cut I took in my next job offer.”

Another wrote, “It really depends on your pain threshold. Do you have enough savings to survive for more months of job hunting? Are you okay with job hunting for many more months, with no end in sight, to get the $7K salary you want? Or are you bored out of your mind with nothing to do? And you would rather just take a lower-paying job and have something to do, in the meantime?”

A third added, “S$4k still better than S$0. Also, the longer you’re unemployed, the harder it is to get employed, as HR will start questioning why you’ve been out of work for so long.”

In other news, a 30-year-old man recently shared in a Reddit post that he is approaching the one-year mark since he last held a job, and that his ongoing struggle with unemployment has become an increasingly difficult chapter in his life.

Writing on the r/askSingapore forum on Friday (June 20), he revealed that he has been out of work since August 2024. Prior to that, he was earning a five-figure monthly salary at a well-known bulge bracket firm.

Read more: ‘It’s taking forever’: 30 yo man struggles to bounce back after nearly a year of unemployment

Featured image by freepik (for illustration purposes only)