‘Not sure what’s next’: New mum laid off weeks after returning to work from maternity leave as her role will be outsourced to India to cut costs

SINGAPORE: A Singaporean HR professional was left wondering what’s next after being laid off barely a few weeks after returning to work from maternity leave.

On r/askSingapore, she wrote: “I’ve been told that they’re outsourcing my role to India due to cost. Sort of knew this was coming but it still stings.”

Explaining her situation further, she said she was initially given a two-month notice period, but the company was kind enough to let her stay until the end of the year to give her more time to find a job, considering she had just given birth.

Feeling lost and unsure what to do next, she aired her concerns: “What if I don’t get to secure a job by next year? The thought of starting new also scares me. Any word of advice would be much appreciated.”

Commenters were quick to offer practical advice.

One urged her to start polishing her resume, create profiles on job portals, consider career coaching through the National Trades Union Congress’s (NTUC’s) Employment and Employability Institute (e2i), and start sending resumes out.

Another encouraged her to “apply everywhere”, giving her tips on how to tailor her resume and cover letter to each position she was applying for.

“The easy way is to just copy the requirements of each job you’re looking at, and insert them directly into your resume, include demonstrated examples and you’d be good. heard from a lot of HR folks they directly sieve out relevant experience using AI and the key words they put out in their job advertisement.”

The commenter also reassured her, saying, “Don’t worry too much as you’ve got lead time for this.”

Meanwhile, a third commenter shared his own layoff experience and that of his wife, who was also laid off after returning from maternity leave, encouraging her that “things will be okay.”

“Don’t need to be bummed. It happens, don’t take it personally. Layoff is part and parcel of life. All we can do is constantly make sure we have the skills that are in demand. I was laid off in 2024, and my wife was laid off in 2026 just as she came back from maternity (with 3 months notice). Things will be okay,” he said.

When commenters suggested that HR roles were less likely to be offshored because they were “ringfenced to hire locals quota”, the post author explained that her company was “cutting a lot of people” as it was not doing well. She added, “Whenever someone in the SG office leaves, we hire their replacement overseas.”

This is not the first time a Singapore-based worker has raised concerns about jobs being moved overseas.

Earlier this year, a local employee shared online that he had become the “only survivor” of his regional team after the rest of his team in the local office was wiped out following a series of layoffs and offshoring decisions.

Amid locals’ concerns over jobs in the city-state, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday (Aug 23), also said that while Singapore welcomes foreign workers to complement the local workforce, the government does so in a “careful and controlled” way, Channel News Asia reported.

“We will always ensure that Singaporeans remain the majority in our own country,” he added. /TISG

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