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SINGAPORE: A pandemic-stricken Singapore has experienced its biggest drop in employment since the 2002-3 Severe Acute Respiratory System (SARS) outbreak.
The Singapore Ministry of Health confirmed 447 new Covid-19 (coronavirus) infections on Saturday, the smallest daily increase in two weeks, bringing the city-state’s case count to 17,548 with 16 virus-related deaths.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Human Resources also announced that more than 19,900 jobs were cut during the first quarter of 2020, many of them in “consumer-oriented food and beverage services and retail, and tourism-dependent accommodation,” that the The ministry stated they were among the sectors “most seriously affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.”
Job losses outpaced those of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, when Singapore, dependent on trade and investment, was the first country in East or Southeast Asia to fall into recession.
Singapore has the fourth highest gross domestic product per capita in the world, according to International Monetary Fund rankings, and its overall unemployment rate remains low at 2.4%.
The pandemic and closings have led to unemployment in western countries, many with income levels similar to those of Singapore, to double figures.
Worldwide, at least 3 million people have been infected with Covid-19 and nearly 220,000 have died after contracting the disease, including 14 in Singapore.
Although its death toll is one of the lowest in the world, the number of Covid-19 cases in Singapore has multiplied by fifteen in April, with 690 new cases on Wednesday totaling 15,641, the third highest in Asia after China and India.
Most of those infected are low-wage migrant workers who live side by side in dozens of mass dormitories.
The increase has forced Singapore to impose a debilitating economic embargo on April 7, after the period covered in today’s new employment data.
Singapore’s central bank warned on Tuesday that the economy could shrink by at least 4% in 2020.
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