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SINGAPORE: Concerns over businesses pulling out of Singapore have surfaced online following job cuts by Swedish fashion retailer H&M. The bulk of the cuts, which will affect nearly a third of its regional support workforce, are expected to come from Singapore. H&M is also moving its regional headquarters to Kuala Lumpur. With nearly 80% of new jobs last year going to foreign workers, alongside news of offshoring, some Singaporeans on r/singapore said the developments in the job market are worrying. One claimed that many Singapore businesses’ tech and engineering functions are now being offshored to Vietnam, while another working in the shipping sector said the “bleeding” is not in tech alone. “We are bleeding jobs in many sectors. I’m in the shipping industry, and this has been happening after COVID. I reckon that after Covid, companies realised the world is more connected than ever and as long as there’s internet connection, work can be done. So they start looking at lower-cost countries where there’s a workforce that can do these jobs, jobs that are on the expense side of the business.” Another commenter said locals have no choice but to seek high salaries to survive Singapore’s cost of living, and when companies feel the pinch of these costs, they end up offshoring functions or relocating operations to neighbouring countries. Meanwhile, a third shared, “I am friends with a few startup CEOs, the irony is that they like to say support local when it comes to their businesses, but they themselves don’t support local when it comes to employment.” Just last month, a Singapore-based employee leading a team of workers across China and Southeast Asia also shared her fears of being laid off online, after a series of layoffs and offshoring decisions left her the “only survivor” of their local office. /TISG