The unskilled ones are the first who will be laid off. The skilled and professional ones.. can find a better job but the job market may be tightening as companies begin to implement hiring freeze.

Next year, if recession persist, we will see..waves of unskilled Malaysians will move back to Malaysia, then waves of unskilled Indo/Bangla/Burmese will move out of Malaysia back to their home country.

Unskilled Malaysian can pickup the slacks left by foreign workers.

Quite the opposite.. rental property is stable now and with thousands of people being layoff and gone home.
there are a lot of vacancy. and there will be bargains very soon as owners can't find occupants to fill them.

Even though there is severe setback for Singapore this year and perhaps going forward next year,
IMO Singapore will continue to be ahead of everybody (comparing to ASEAN countries) else including Malaysia.

Singapore is definitely NOT in depression. Yes, severe recession but definitely not depression because the
unemployment has not hit the double digit yet, maybe as high as 7-8 percent at the highest. Because there a lot of foreigners in Singapore, those excess can be trimmed without affecting the locals (call it 'Singaporean first'), same process like in Malaysia. MNCs are pulling back.. but GLCs are stabilising and perhaps even increasing.

Over the last 20 years, Singapore GDP has already pummeled ahead of Malaysia and even at this downturn, even at its worse, Malaysia on per capital basis does not seem to increase ahead than of Singapore.

Singapore govt (although autocratic) reacts pretty quick, with tons of cash in reserves, they can pull through this with no problem.

This post has been edited by danmooncake: Mar 23 2009, 01:18 AM