which type of designer you are referring to? engineering? shirt? house?

I think web designers are still getting sort of decent pay. What I know is those DTP and graphic designers quite often receive offers which does not have a good pay.

But also don't forget that if you can multitask and depending on what other knowledge you have in this field. Designers these days must know everything already to get a decent pay, like having a good art sense, being able to design/handle websites with knowledge in various coding language and so on.

1.2? Screw them. do freelancing

What risk you refer to? I think being a freelancer, it is because the risk is small;free hours ...

But everything is on your own. My friend last time being a web freelancer able to earn some awesome money.

Marciello worried dat no business.
i makan gaji just to gain skill, exp n network. moneh comes later when i go freelancing. Network is good in getting client n sub a job to ur trusted skilled friend dat screw u up

Its also because of supply - demand factor. Since there's so many new graduates coming out from Lim Kok Weng and One Academy every year, there's always a ready supply of freshies who are willing to accept anything just to get rid of the label.

For small businesses, they only need a designer to do simple design work - logo, cards, website, so they don't want to pay too much when a freshie is willing to do it for them. And from their point of view, the results from no designer to any designer is already an improvement.

Agencies will pay better for designers, but unfortunately there's so many of them in the industry you'll have to value add yourself extensively to stand out - which is already mentioned knowing just more than designing but its related tasks as well, not to mention they'll work you round the clock because thats just how agencies work

Higher paid designers are usually at the Art Director and above level.