SG Morning Highlights | Banks in Singapore Expand Wealth, Tech Jobs Even As Wall Street Layoffs Gather Steam

Advancers / Decliners is 79 to 56, with 65.49 million securities worth S$86.36 million changing hands.

Global investment banks may have been laying off dealmakers and cutting bankers' pay, but banks in Singapore are looking at a rosier situation as more private monies flow their way and they seek to enhance digital capabilities.

Recruiters and bank representatives The Business Times (BT) spoke to said lenders here are hiring across their wealth businesses, corporate and commercial banking divisions, as well as for a gamut of tech-related roles.

Hiring may have slowed for 2022, as is typical for most year-ends, but recruiters said they have received mandates for the next year that include salary packages between 20 and 40 per cent above the norm, as employers jostle for talent.

FROM July to mid-November this year, the Ministry of Manpower received notices of retrenchment for 1,270 resident workers in tech companies, said Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng in Parliament on Monday (Nov 28).

About eight in 10 were employed in non-tech roles such as sales, marketing and corporate functions, and around seven in 10 were aged 35 and below. This is consistent with the median age of employed residents in the information and communications (I&C) sector, to which the "tech sector" generally refers, he said.

Singapores tech retrenchments are part of worldwide layoffs, Dr Tan noted. "News sources have reported global retrenchment numbers at more than 21,000 employees across close to 50 tech companies worldwide in November 2022 alone, more than any other month this year."

Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Barkin on Monday said he supports moving to smaller interest-rate hikes in the central bank's fight to bring down too-high inflation.

"I'm very supportive of the path that is slower, probably longer and potentially higher," Barkin said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, though he declined to say how high he believes rates will need to go, saying the Fed will do "what we need to do" to ease price pressures.

"You obviously don't want to do damage you don't have to do. But the focus is on inflation and getting inflation under control."

The group, which has businesses in space optimisation, facilities management and logistics, saw its revenue slip to S$52.6 million following lower demand in the dormitory management business.

In a regulatory filing, the company added that it has exchanged all its existing notes – its outstanding 8.5 per cent senior secured notes due 2026 – for new notes of the same value due 2027.

The total shares TLW Success and its concert parties owned, controlled or agreed to acquire, and the valid acceptances of the S$0.40 per share offer, crossed the 90 per cent threshold on Monday (Nov 28).