SINGAPORE: Reports that Standard Chartered laid off 80 staff members in Singapore to offshore these roles to India appear to have sent a chill among some employees. One Reddit user immediately took to the platform to ask how others are protecting themselves.
The company offshored roles in Singapore, mainly from its technology and operations teams, according to eFinancialCareers. However, this may just be the beginning of a broader restructuring, sources at the bank have said.
In a post on r/askSingapore, u/piggyb0nk wrote, “What are you doing to protect yourself from offshoring?”
They explained that they work with several tech teams, and the majority of the roles are contracted out to companies based in India, Vietnam, and the Philippines. They described the workers they’ve met from these countries as “REALLY GOOD” – experienced, able to speak “decent” English, and known to perform well.
The post author added that they’ve discovered that these workers are paid only “a fraction” of what their Singapore counterparts make.
“The company actually has no logical business keeping me on – most of the local team here could be eliminated and contractors hired offshore,” the post author wrote, adding, “I’ve found that upskilling isn’t really helpful because there will be many people equally or better skilled who can demand less – so I have trying to work toward a career path that takes me up into management as quickly as possible to achieve some level of stability.”
They also asked what others are doing to protect themselves from offshoring.
“I work in IT with physical sites, part of my hiring was to have an engineer near the sites in case something happens. This helps to justify my hiring,” wrote one, adding, “I also volunteer to travel to any nearby countries if required. (My career has sent me to Japan, Indo, msia, India, etc). This offers our passport visa-free advantages to our employers.
“In my case, I try not to compete with 3rd world salaries but with 1st world salaries. We can earn the same or slightly less than Americans or Europeans and still have a higher purchasing power due to our lower taxes.”
“Be a revenue driver or a critical component of revenue-driving teams. Nobody’s doing sales out of India. The corporate mindset now is front-end based in Singapore (for that income tax) and backend based in a satellite office.
“Find ways to value-add. If you’re an expensive/senior role at a cost centre unit, sorry but your time is ticking. Be visible, find ways to value add. Your roles are the juiciest when a bunch of old white men sit in a boardroom and go through lists of who to retrench because soft benefits like efficiency don’t show up in KPI data all the way up,” contributed another.
Some advised that taking jobs in healthcare, education, security, or the civil service are likely to be safer from offshoring, and others said that the post author could move to a country where the cost of living is cheaper.
Another chimed in that they’re accumulating assets in case they are let go.
“It’s easier and much more productive to make ourselves less dependent on the job for a living. That way, if offshoring really happens to the job, it will suck but not matter as much. Also, at some point in time, like it or not, we have to retire.”
Interestingly, one commenter did not answer the question but pointed to high rental rates and how these affect salaries as a key part of the problem.
“The issue is the sky-high rent and rent-seeking behavior. High wages in SG, but most of the wage goes towards landlords (whether directly in the form of mortgage or rental payments or indirectly in the form of higher prices, etc). This perpetuates a wage-price spiral (high prices so workers demand higher salaries, which then lead to high prices), which prices us out from competitors without any real benefit to Singaporeans who are spending locally. It’s great for people working SGD and spending elsewhere, eg, Malaysians /foreigners who send money back home,” they wrote. /TISG