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Covid-19 and the economic recession have caused an emphasis on locals, but accompanied by anti-foreign sentiment online. Insight finds out whether expats still feel welcome in Singapore and the region, and the challenges they face trying to better integrate.
Singapore’s reputation for being open to at-risk talent?
When the Singapore government announced another $ 1 billion round of grants and incentives to promote local hiring in August, Australian Paul Schmeja was elated.
The 46-year-old, based here on an Employment Pass (EP), is a CEO of a company that provides corporate real estate services. He says his goal is to employ 90 percent of the local workforce by tapping into recently displaced customer service talent from the Covid-19-hit tourism and hospitality industries.
But a British shipping professional, who wants to be known only as Tom, and has worked in Singapore since 2010, took the news differently. He was disappointed when, later that month, the Minister of State for Manpower and Education, Gan Siow Huang, told Parliament that employers should give preference to Singaporeans seeking employment and that, when necessary, downsizing , “withhold Singaporean over foreigner.”
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More expats move to the heart as packages shrink
More and more expats are moving away from Singapore’s main and central districts to suburban areas of the heart, while continuing to opt for private housing within pre-existing expat communities, according to realtors and online portals Insight spoke to.
They say the trend, observed anecdotally over the past decade, can be primarily attributed to the reduction, if not eliminated entirely, in expat benefits, international school relocation, and the impact of Covid-19.
Ella Sherman, associate executive director of sales for real estate consultancy Knight Frank, recalls that large expat packages were the norm when she started 14 years ago.
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Integration: ‘Take both to tango’
He has lived in Britain, France, Italy, Dubai and Singapore, but only one of these places “feels like home” to 45-year-old Francis (not his real name) every time he lands at their airport.
“When we land in Changi, it always feels good to be back. It’s true,” says the British expat who has lived in Singapore since 2012.
His experience seems to be in tune with Singapore’s high rankings in global surveys of the best overall destinations for expats.
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In the midst of the recession, is Asia losing its appeal for talent?
When British professor Kiran Coolican hastily left Chengdu at the start of the coronavirus outbreak in China in January to take on a new job in Spain, he didn’t expect to be quickly fired and out of work for the next eight months.
The 30-year-old was teaching English on a one-year contract at a private school in Chengdu, the Sichuan capital, when he got a new job teaching the subject at school camps in Spain from March to August.
“I made the painful decision to end my contract (with the school in Chengdu) at the end of January because I was deeply concerned that the situation in China would spiral out of control and the Spanish company would refuse to allow me to work for them,” Coolican says.
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Covid-19 is not the only reason for the Hong Kong departures
The number of visas issued by Hong Kong’s immigration department for professional jobs in the first half of this year fell by more than 60 percent to 7,717, from 19,756 in the same period a year ago.
But it’s not just Covid-19 that is causing expats to leave Hong Kong. Anti-government protests that began last June made the financial center less attractive.
Foreigners are increasingly wary of the new, far-reaching national security law that China imposed on the city in June, which gave Beijing broad powers to search warrantless and sanction and freeze the assets of anyone deemed a threat to safety.
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Hardest hit Gulf states lose their luster
Ms. Sadaf Gull moved to Dubai from Pakistan permanently in 2005 after her husband, a development manager, accepted a lucrative offer in the city. The tax-free salary, Islamic culture, and safe environment were attractive.
There they settled and raised two children.
But the Covid-19 pandemic upset everything. In March, just two months after the first coronavirus cases were reported, the number of infections soared to 600, with five deaths.
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