According to the latest employment survey of fresh graduates from Singapore universities, there has been a 50% jump in the number of jobless fresh graduates turning to part-time jobs to make ends meet. Local universities NTU and NUS revealed in a joined survey that the percentage of part-timers jumped from 6.4% in 2015 to 9.5% in 2016.
NTU is ranked first while NUS is ranked second in Asia according to a university ranking by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asia University Rankings.
The survey omitted the income of the part-timers in the survey but part-time jobs in Singapore pay as low as $7 an hour for waiters.
At another government university, Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), part-timer percentage increased from 7.6% in 2016 to 12% in 2017. The survey also found that there is a higher percentage of part-time job holders from communications design and interior design course.
More than 10% of the fresh graduates from the three government universities are jobless for more than 6 months – the worst employment report since the 2009 financial crisis.
Unemployment rate has also climbed to an 8-year-high of 3.1% for Singaporean citizens in a recent employment survey. However the Singapore government remains in denial mode, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong claiming that GDP figures still looks “optimistic” at between 2-3%. Earlier this week, the dictator PM arranged a S$19 billion deal between national carrier SIA and US aerospace company Boeing, creating 70,000 jobs in the US.