The Big Read in short: Covid-19 crisis could make or break S’pore’s millennials
Each week, TODAY’s long-running Big Read series delves into the trends and issues that matter. This week, we look at how millennials are bracing themselves for what would be not just the first crisis for many of them, but also the defining crisis of their generation. This is a shortened version of the full feature, which can be found here.
SINGAPORE — In February, final-year undergraduate Bianca Chua thought she was all set for the working world after starting her internship as a headhunter at a human resource (HR) firm.
The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) business major secured the internship in December, and she had been told verbally and over email that she would be automatically converted to a full-timer when she graduated in May. At that time, the 23-year-old was over the moon at securing a full-time job before most of her peers did.
“Everything went fine” for about a month after her internship began, she said. Then, things went pear-shaped quickly.
Story Continues Below Advertisement
The Covid-19 outbreak, which originated in China and had rattled Singapore since January, has morphed into a full-blown pandemic.
On March 26, Ms Chua’s firm told her that it would be laying off “half the team”, including herself and several full-timers. She was told to pack her things and leave on the day itself.
Read also: The Big Read: S’pore’s oft-maligned millennials face their first crisis, and it doesn’t come much bigger than this
“It feels bad... suddenly my whole plan was derailed,” she said.
If Ms Chua is among those who have the misfortune of graduating amid a looming recession, the millennials who are working in industries which have been battered by Covid-19 are faring no better.
A Singapore Airlines (SIA) air stewardess, who wanted to be known only as Ingrid, was last rostered on a flight in mid-March. Since SIA announced on March 23 that it would be cutting 96 per cent of capacity due to vanishing demand, she has been grounded, earning little more than S$1,000 a month in basic pay, about one-fifth of her usual salary.
Ingrid then reached out to her aunt, who works at a hawker stall selling Muslim food, but was told that there were no vacancies.
“Before this I went out on all my days off and would sit with my friends over brunch at overpriced cafes, but I can’t afford to do that now,” said the 25-year-old, who is currently cooped up at home scrolling through job-hiring sites.
Like Ms Chua and Ingrid, the majority of those in their early 20s to mid-30s — commonly referred to as millennials — are facing a crisis of global proportions for the first time in their adult lives. And as far as crises go, they do not come much bigger than what the world is currently experiencing.
With millennials often dismissed as the “strawberry generation” — easily “bruised” when faced with societal pressures or made to do some heavy lifting — will they be able to handle a crisis that has been dubbed as a “once-in-a-generation occurrence”, and one that could turn out to be the worst global upheaval since the Great Depression in the 1930s?
OPEN TO ODD JOBS
Due to changing attitudes and the pervasiveness of the gig economy, many of those interviewed said they have no qualms about taking up odd jobs in sectors such as retail and food and beverage, should no other options be available. While these industries might be looked down upon by their older counterparts in higher-ranking jobs, the millennials said they do not mind biting the bullet to ride out the storm.
An air steward with a regional airline, who wanted to be known only as Kevin, has been spending the last three weeks working at a retail store in Orchard Road instead of serving passengers on flights.
He gets about S$350 a month working three times a week at the store. Now that Kevin is no longer rostered for flights, his pay has been reduced to about S$1,000 a month in basic salary.
He has also been selling cakes which he bakes himself at home, earning him about S$100 a month at most.
All in, he makes less than S$1,500 a month these days — less than half the S$3,500 he used to earn.
While Kevin’s new part-time gigs might seem like a downgrade for many, the 28-year-old is open to doing them.
“I am not afraid that there is a stigma attached to it, as it is still a proper job, and it is something that I enjoy,” he said, referring to his retail job.
Final-year NUS student Val Alvern Cueco Ligo, 25, said that when Covid-19 began to make its presence felt around the start of the year, many of his peers “took for granted that things would be smooth”, and most did not “expect it to be so bad”.
Having applied for four jobs so far, the communications and new media major has not heard back from any prospective employers, and is bracing himself for the worst.
If Mr Cueco Ligo does not manage to land a job that matches his degree, he is considering working full-time at a restaurant to make ends meet. However, he would eventually want to get another job related to his degree.
On the stigma that may be attached to lower-paying jobs, Mr Cueco Ligo pointed out that there is growing recognition that workers in these roles provide essential services during a crisis.
“Especially now, people are really facing the fact that a lot of these (lower-income) jobs are very essential… when everything stops (workers in these jobs) are the ones that keep (society) moving.”
OUT GOES THE S$10 SALAD BOWL
The Yolo (you only live once) attitude which characterises many millennials have led others to perceive them as having a cavalier attitude towards financial prudence.
Millennials who had been less than thrifty with their money in the past told TODAY that the Covid-19 pandemic has helped them realise the need to be more prudent from now.
Ingrid, the SIA stewardess, said that apart from frequenting higher-end cafes, she also has the expensive habit of taking ride-sharing services wherever she travels, even though an MRT station sits right in front of her residence.
“I will be making a more conscious effort to take public transport when I go out,” she said.
While she saved only about 20 per cent of her salary in the past, she now plans to put aside “a good 35 to 40 per cent”.
Another millennial, who wanted to be known only as Victoria, has already started to alter her spending habits amid concerns that she may be let go by a beauty retailer.
While the 24-year-old had joined the company as a contract staff, she was told that after a year, she would automatically be converted to a full-timer. But at the end of March — on the day she was supposed to become a full-time staff — she was told that there would be a two-month contract extension instead, with no more promises of a conversion.
Due to the uncertainty, Victoria has begun sending her resume to prospective employers in her free time, and has also been saving up in case she loses her job.
She now eats S$2 lunches at hawker centres instead of indulging in S$10 salad bowls, takes public transport more often instead of cabs, and has cut down on unnecessary spending on shoes, accessories and cosmetics, Victoria said.
While she did not set aside a fixed percentage of her income as savings before, Victoria plans to do so in the future with a savings account.
CONCERNS OF OLDER MILLENNIALS
For 33-year-old Sarah Cheng-De Winne, her concerns about a floundering job market are compounded by the fact that — unlike many younger millennials — she has two children aged four and 13 to feed.
Ms Cheng-De Winne, who with her husband owns a branding and design company called Relay Room, said that their revenue depends largely on whether they have a stable clientele.
She recalled an incident where her teenage daughter dropped and broke her laptop recently, at a time when the company was still sourcing for new clients.
“I looked at her and asked her ‘where are we going to get S$215 (the repair cost) from? This is not a time to be careless’,” she said. “We were in transition (between getting clients), and we did not know when the next project would be.”
Amid the crisis, she advises younger millennials to diversify their skills within the industry and find new means to create value.
Last November, she founded a separate e-commerce start-up called Taizjo, which sells handphone slings. This has helped her earn some extra income, as the sales have not been affected during this period when people are being encouraged to remain at home.
For millennials who find themselves out of work, HR experts told TODAY that it was important for this group to keep busy while searching for employment.
Ms Carmen Wee from the Institute for Human Resource Professionals said that while employment opportunities may be hard to come by, spending time doing odd jobs and volunteering at charities would be better than being idle at home.
“Future employers will ask (what you did) when the market was slow,” she said. “When you spend your time productively (during the downturn) and do something meaningful… It will demonstrate a lot of character traits and qualities that employers will look at, more than just a degree.”
Neither should one be afraid that employers may look down on odd jobs if one had to take them up to survive, she pointed out.
“It’s all about how you explain (to prospective employers) the economic necessity, and what you learned out of it,” she said. “The ability to step down and be humble and pull through helps to build resilience and maturity, and that helps your career prospects.”
While there is value in taking up gigs and odd jobs, career strategist Adrian Choo, founder of Career Agility International, cautioned against being over-reliant on them.
“If it’s a short-term thing spanning one or two years, it’s OK, but if you want to be a permanent ‘gigster’, it’s going to harm your career in the long run because you are not developing domain expertise and are not developing any particular skill,” he said.
As the millennials go through what could be the defining crisis of their generation, they were confident that they would come through it stronger.
Commenting on the “strawberry generation” label that has been pinned on millennials, Victoria, the employee at the beauty retailer, pointed out that just like every generation before them, maturity and resilience can only come from hardship — and the Covid-19 crisis will provide a stern test of their mettle.
“Maybe in the past some millennials had (extravagant) lifestyles, but now that we are all working, we see how tough it is… And definitely a lot of us would change our lifestyles,” she said.
“We have to adapt to this crisis. We have no other choice.”
Each week, TODAY’s long-running Big Read series delves into the trends and issues that matter. This week, we look at how millennials are bracing themselves for what would be not just the first crisis for many of them, but also the defining crisis of their generation. This is a shortened version of the full feature, which can be found here.
SINGAPORE — In February, final-year undergraduate Bianca Chua thought she was all set for the working world after starting her internship as a headhunter at a human resource (HR) firm.
The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) business major secured the internship in December, and she had been told verbally and over email that she would be automatically converted to a full-timer when she graduated in May. At that time, the 23-year-old was over the moon at securing a full-time job before most of her peers did.
“Everything went fine” for about a month after her internship began, she said. Then, things went pear-shaped quickly.
Story Continues Below Advertisement
The Covid-19 outbreak, which originated in China and had rattled Singapore since January, has morphed into a full-blown pandemic.
On March 26, Ms Chua’s firm told her that it would be laying off “half the team”, including herself and several full-timers. She was told to pack her things and leave on the day itself.
Read also: The Big Read: S’pore’s oft-maligned millennials face their first crisis, and it doesn’t come much bigger than this
“It feels bad... suddenly my whole plan was derailed,” she said.
If Ms Chua is among those who have the misfortune of graduating amid a looming recession, the millennials who are working in industries which have been battered by Covid-19 are faring no better.
A Singapore Airlines (SIA) air stewardess, who wanted to be known only as Ingrid, was last rostered on a flight in mid-March. Since SIA announced on March 23 that it would be cutting 96 per cent of capacity due to vanishing demand, she has been grounded, earning little more than S$1,000 a month in basic pay, about one-fifth of her usual salary.
Ingrid then reached out to her aunt, who works at a hawker stall selling Muslim food, but was told that there were no vacancies.
“Before this I went out on all my days off and would sit with my friends over brunch at overpriced cafes, but I can’t afford to do that now,” said the 25-year-old, who is currently cooped up at home scrolling through job-hiring sites.
Like Ms Chua and Ingrid, the majority of those in their early 20s to mid-30s — commonly referred to as millennials — are facing a crisis of global proportions for the first time in their adult lives. And as far as crises go, they do not come much bigger than what the world is currently experiencing.
With millennials often dismissed as the “strawberry generation” — easily “bruised” when faced with societal pressures or made to do some heavy lifting — will they be able to handle a crisis that has been dubbed as a “once-in-a-generation occurrence”, and one that could turn out to be the worst global upheaval since the Great Depression in the 1930s?
OPEN TO ODD JOBS
Due to changing attitudes and the pervasiveness of the gig economy, many of those interviewed said they have no qualms about taking up odd jobs in sectors such as retail and food and beverage, should no other options be available. While these industries might be looked down upon by their older counterparts in higher-ranking jobs, the millennials said they do not mind biting the bullet to ride out the storm.
An air steward with a regional airline, who wanted to be known only as Kevin, has been spending the last three weeks working at a retail store in Orchard Road instead of serving passengers on flights.
He gets about S$350 a month working three times a week at the store. Now that Kevin is no longer rostered for flights, his pay has been reduced to about S$1,000 a month in basic salary.
He has also been selling cakes which he bakes himself at home, earning him about S$100 a month at most.
All in, he makes less than S$1,500 a month these days — less than half the S$3,500 he used to earn.
While Kevin’s new part-time gigs might seem like a downgrade for many, the 28-year-old is open to doing them.
“I am not afraid that there is a stigma attached to it, as it is still a proper job, and it is something that I enjoy,” he said, referring to his retail job.
Final-year NUS student Val Alvern Cueco Ligo, 25, said that when Covid-19 began to make its presence felt around the start of the year, many of his peers “took for granted that things would be smooth”, and most did not “expect it to be so bad”.
Having applied for four jobs so far, the communications and new media major has not heard back from any prospective employers, and is bracing himself for the worst.
If Mr Cueco Ligo does not manage to land a job that matches his degree, he is considering working full-time at a restaurant to make ends meet. However, he would eventually want to get another job related to his degree.
On the stigma that may be attached to lower-paying jobs, Mr Cueco Ligo pointed out that there is growing recognition that workers in these roles provide essential services during a crisis.
“Especially now, people are really facing the fact that a lot of these (lower-income) jobs are very essential… when everything stops (workers in these jobs) are the ones that keep (society) moving.”
OUT GOES THE S$10 SALAD BOWL
The Yolo (you only live once) attitude which characterises many millennials have led others to perceive them as having a cavalier attitude towards financial prudence.
Millennials who had been less than thrifty with their money in the past told TODAY that the Covid-19 pandemic has helped them realise the need to be more prudent from now.
Ingrid, the SIA stewardess, said that apart from frequenting higher-end cafes, she also has the expensive habit of taking ride-sharing services wherever she travels, even though an MRT station sits right in front of her residence.
“I will be making a more conscious effort to take public transport when I go out,” she said.
While she saved only about 20 per cent of her salary in the past, she now plans to put aside “a good 35 to 40 per cent”.
Another millennial, who wanted to be known only as Victoria, has already started to alter her spending habits amid concerns that she may be let go by a beauty retailer.
While the 24-year-old had joined the company as a contract staff, she was told that after a year, she would automatically be converted to a full-timer. But at the end of March — on the day she was supposed to become a full-time staff — she was told that there would be a two-month contract extension instead, with no more promises of a conversion.
Due to the uncertainty, Victoria has begun sending her resume to prospective employers in her free time, and has also been saving up in case she loses her job.
She now eats S$2 lunches at hawker centres instead of indulging in S$10 salad bowls, takes public transport more often instead of cabs, and has cut down on unnecessary spending on shoes, accessories and cosmetics, Victoria said.
While she did not set aside a fixed percentage of her income as savings before, Victoria plans to do so in the future with a savings account.
CONCERNS OF OLDER MILLENNIALS
For 33-year-old Sarah Cheng-De Winne, her concerns about a floundering job market are compounded by the fact that — unlike many younger millennials — she has two children aged four and 13 to feed.
Ms Cheng-De Winne, who with her husband owns a branding and design company called Relay Room, said that their revenue depends largely on whether they have a stable clientele.
She recalled an incident where her teenage daughter dropped and broke her laptop recently, at a time when the company was still sourcing for new clients.
“I looked at her and asked her ‘where are we going to get S$215 (the repair cost) from? This is not a time to be careless’,” she said. “We were in transition (between getting clients), and we did not know when the next project would be.”
Amid the crisis, she advises younger millennials to diversify their skills within the industry and find new means to create value.
Last November, she founded a separate e-commerce start-up called Taizjo, which sells handphone slings. This has helped her earn some extra income, as the sales have not been affected during this period when people are being encouraged to remain at home.
For millennials who find themselves out of work, HR experts told TODAY that it was important for this group to keep busy while searching for employment.
Ms Carmen Wee from the Institute for Human Resource Professionals said that while employment opportunities may be hard to come by, spending time doing odd jobs and volunteering at charities would be better than being idle at home.
“Future employers will ask (what you did) when the market was slow,” she said. “When you spend your time productively (during the downturn) and do something meaningful… It will demonstrate a lot of character traits and qualities that employers will look at, more than just a degree.”
Neither should one be afraid that employers may look down on odd jobs if one had to take them up to survive, she pointed out.
“It’s all about how you explain (to prospective employers) the economic necessity, and what you learned out of it,” she said. “The ability to step down and be humble and pull through helps to build resilience and maturity, and that helps your career prospects.”
While there is value in taking up gigs and odd jobs, career strategist Adrian Choo, founder of Career Agility International, cautioned against being over-reliant on them.
“If it’s a short-term thing spanning one or two years, it’s OK, but if you want to be a permanent ‘gigster’, it’s going to harm your career in the long run because you are not developing domain expertise and are not developing any particular skill,” he said.
As the millennials go through what could be the defining crisis of their generation, they were confident that they would come through it stronger.
Commenting on the “strawberry generation” label that has been pinned on millennials, Victoria, the employee at the beauty retailer, pointed out that just like every generation before them, maturity and resilience can only come from hardship — and the Covid-19 crisis will provide a stern test of their mettle.
“Maybe in the past some millennials had (extravagant) lifestyles, but now that we are all working, we see how tough it is… And definitely a lot of us would change our lifestyles,” she said.
“We have to adapt to this crisis. We have no other choice.”
KNN
an old hen like to lie about her age. She should be in her late fifties now 
