foreign manpower tightening

[Wd40]

SCB is more of a retail bank and wealth management so its much lesser issues there.

The problems are with banks that have huge IB operations.

[Mi Amigo]

I'm not interested in Java, .NET and db. I have different job descriptions.
For what you've said about skills, who pays attention? You also take a look at "towel attendant" job description in California Fitness. He/she should be passionate, with good team spirit and communication skills. When actually I just need to get a towel when I come, no need to give it to me with passion, moreover no need to engage the whole team in doing this!

Haha, thanks for the genuine LOL . Well said.

[Mi Amigo]

Barclays cuts, but not as mush as CS, Citi and UBS though.

Barclays cutting at least 3,700 jobs
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57568869/barclays-cutting-at-least-3700-jobs/

Barclays recorded a loss of 236 million pounds ($368 million) for 2012 against a net profit of 3.9 billion pounds for 2011.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21423691

Of the job cuts, 1,800 will come from its corporate and investment banking, with the vast majority in Asia, and 1,900 will come from its European retail and business banking.

Can anybody find anything clear on SCB? Or they haven't announced their results yet?

Obvioulsy I sympathise with anyone who loses their job, but frankly Barclays and other banks had it coming. I'd still like to see some of their bosses put behind bars for what went on over the past decade, but I guess there's little chance of that happening. Maybe Antony Jenkins will make a genuine difference at Barclays? He's certainly making all the 'right noises', but is that just PR bullsh!t, and will he just be assimilated into the pig trough collective like all the others in due course?

[Brah]

More on this:
http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/singap ... ector.html

As usual, the comments are quite telling.

[Wd40]

More on this:
http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/singap ... ector.html

As usual, the comments are quite telling.

. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . ,.-‘â€Â

[Brah]

Right - Armageddon!

.......



.......



...... I guess no one got the Armageddon reference in the gerbil thread.......

[zzm9980]

"A few firms acknowledged that certain departments did seem to have "hot spots" where clusters of employees from the same country appeared to have developed over time," the advertisements said, although TAFEP also cited an example of a complaint that was not justified.

For as racist as Singapore is, why don't they just come out and say "Indians"?

I used to have a malaysian hr manager who love hiring pinoys, malaysian, indonesian.... and she love pinoys so much that she will drive and pick them up during company dinner or events!

Or maybe they just were more pleasant and had better personalities to talk with than the others?

[Mi Amigo]

I don't think it's just the Indians that they dislike; Pinoys, MCs and others come under attack in the comments too. In fact everyone who's not Singaporean as far as I can see:

"Please REMOVE ALL higher skilled foreigners whose is stealing Singaporeans jobs and KEEP SOME lower skilled foreigners doing odd labour jobs. Simple!"

"sodo all the foreigmer out of singapore,especually from ind#a, than we will truly become one nation and one people"

"What especially from india you moron. Dont forget china and PHILIPPINES foremost."

"We want foreigners out...............OUT OUT."

"GET THE FOREIGNERS OUT... I refuse to accept that the PAP refuses to report foreign numbers by nationality groups. If they refuse than we should want the foreigners out. Call me a foreign hater, and I am proud to be one then."

"Always heard foreigners criticising us & yet sucking our $$ like draculas. They just want to suck us dry, that's all."

"Expats your bloody days are numbered if you think your life here can continue. Fu<k off."

... etc.. etc...

So it seems that many (most?) Singaporeans are convinced that they don't need us here - they believe they are quite capable of filling all the roles we currently occupy. Well, the ones that are left after many companies move out or downsize, that is. The fact that, for example, my coming here resulted in the creation of jobs for Singaporeans (that wouldn't have happened otherwise) is irrelevant it seems.

If they carry on at this rate, their wishes may indeed come true, partially or wholly. Then we'll see if they're really able to step up and walk the walk, as opposed to just talking the talk.

This place gets more depressing by the day.

[Mi Amigo]

Right - Armageddon!

........

Outahere?

[Brah]

Right - Armageddon!

........

Outahere?

Oh, no no no no. Something much more insidious. I thought it was better known. Come to think of it, I don't know how I came to know it, it was one of those viral things before viral things.

As it's of a very questionable nature, I won't post the link, but if one were interested to learn more one could search armageddon gerbil in a famous video website and it may come up.

[Wd40]

Zzm and Mi Amigo, we just know about our own industry and surroundings and not the whole picture so it's hard to say whether Indians are the only hot spot race.

In MNC bank IT I can confirm that Indians dominate but Filipino too in certain departments. But that's just MNC bank IT. If you look at the local banking IT jobs the picture is completely different, for eg DBS, OCBC it's heavily staffed with other nationalities.

My wife used to work in NCS which is a gahmen company and it had all kinds of people especially PRCs, MYCs, IndoCs and ofcourse Filipinos and Indians.

Have you noticed some local company IT job ads that say mandarin necessary, I wonder why mandarin should be necessary for an IT job, when the official language is English

So there are issues here even without foreigners in the picture. Foreigners are just a convenient punching bag.

[JR8]

Right - Armageddon!

........

Outahere?

Oh, no no no no. Something much more insidious. I thought it was better known. Come to think of it, I don't know how I came to know it, it was one of those viral things before viral things.

As it's of a very questionable nature, I won't post the link, but if one were interested to learn more one could search armageddon gerbil in a famous video website and it may come up.

That story has been doing the rounds for a veeery long time. I remember first reading it in Private Eye's 'Funny Old World' column [Bizarre news stories from around the world] in c1990. I don't know whether it is true or not but Private Eye are probably amongst the best investigative journalists in the world, so they are most unlikely to publish an urban legend and present it as fact (IMHO).


p.s. Google the terms mentioned and you'll see various versions of the story. (The name of the gerbil was Fa*got, at least one site refers to it as 'Ragout').

pps Trivia - For those who don't know: The Pet Shop Boys charmingly named themselves, after precisely this sexually deviant practise.

[zzm9980]

I was about to post this in the American's "suicide" thread, but want to share it here first.

A comment from who I assume is a local Yahoo poster:

http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/parent ... 17197.html

This is one of the problems of taking in FTs. We don't know their pasts and mental states. This is a problem from the unintended consequence of simply invite people from all over the world to work in Singapore. We should really relook at the policy of FTs and unless they bring in capital or some special skills, we should just leave them outside the door.

The subject of the story as most of you know was a PhD doing ground breaking research on dual-purpose civilian/military electronics. Perfect example of local internet tough guy reading comprehension skills.

[JR8]

It's ignorance and prejudice (not knowing that FTs do need capital and/or special skills).

But hey, that's nothing new is it.

[Mi Amigo]

Indeed. It seems that many people here never let the facts get in the way of a good whining session.

Oh yeah, the gerbil thing? I knew about that 'subculture', but I couldn't quite link it to this topic. I'm obviously being a bit slow.