Seagate to pull out of Singapore? and enlarge production in china
Seagate Technology LLC (NASDAQ: STX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) will move its Singapore-based factory to China in 2010, as an effort to cut manufacturing costs and raise profitability, according to Banseng Teh, the hard disk giant’s manager director for Asia Pacific sales.
The Singapore factory will be closed next yearend, with its high-end corporate products to be manufactured by Seagate’s factory in Suzhou City, east China. Besides, the company is set to add its investments in China, where the PC consumption is rising and many laptop makers have set up their affiliates, according to Mr. Teh.
He estimated a USD 1 billion market size for the world’s industry of solid state disks (SSDs), which are mainly used by companies, compared to the hard disk drive (HDD) market size of USD 27 billion to USD 30 billion.
As early as 2007, Seagate established its first China-based HDD assembly factory in Wuxi City, and the factory has become one of the company’s biggest HDD production bases by far.
RBS to cut 3,700 jobs
ROYAL Bank of Scotland, rescued by the British government in the wake of the global financial crisis, said on Monday that it planned to axe about 3,700 jobs across its retail operations in Britain.
‘RBS has begun a process of consultation with staff in the UK regarding a restructuring of its Retail Banking division that will result in losses of approximately 3,700 jobs,’ the state-owned banking group said in a statement.
The announcement comes as the British government is on Tuesday set to lay out plans to break up Royal Bank of Scotland and another lender it rescued, Lloyds Banking Group.
RBS earlier on Monday said it would consider selling more assets than initially planned to win EU support for the state aid received by the group, sending its shares plunging.
The embattled company, which is 70 per cent owned by the taxpayer after a huge bailout last year, added it was close to an agreement over the terms of its participation in a government scheme to insure toxic or high-risk assets.
UPDATE 1-Third of RBS Coutts staff in Singapore quit
* Some of the staff joining Swiss bank BSI – sources
* Two top RBS Coutts executives left few months back -sources
* BSI building its Asian business
(Adds details of Coutts bankers joining BSI)
LONDON/SINGAPORE, Oct 13 (Reuters) – A third of the staff of the Singapore office of RBS Coutts, a private bank that is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS), have quit in a mass resignation, RBS said on Tuesday.
The resignations of 75 people came a few months after Hanspeter Brunner, former co-CEO of RBS Coutts, and Raj Sriram,
head of its South Asia unit, decided to leave the wealth manager and will join Swiss private bank BSI, sources told Reuters.
“Some of the staff are joining BSI,” said a person with knowledge of the hiring. “Not all the 75 who have left (RBS
Coutts).”
A spokesman for RBS confirmed the resignations. BSI was not available for comment.
The hiring comes after Nicola Battalora, Singapore chief executive of BSI, told Reuters in an interview in May that BSI
was looking to expand in Asia and hire bankers.
Lugano-based BSI is a unit of Italy’s insurance group Generali . RBS was rescued by the British government last year and its bonus payments to staff have been under careful scrutiny. The RBS spokesman said the resignations represented less than 15 percent of the regional headcount. “Staff volatility in the private banking industry is not unusual, especially in Asia,” the spokesman said. He declined to comment on the reason for the resignations.
Singapore’s Jobless may rise
SINGAPORE’S unemployment will stay up for some time, even as the economy has decisively emerged from its worst recession and started to grow again.
Sounding a note of caution, Prime Minister Lee said in the short term, the jobless rate may well rise above the second quarter’s 3.3 per cent.
‘This is because unemployment numbers tend to lag behind the economic recovery. Companies will not resume large scale hiring until they are confident of sustained recovery,’ he told the NTUC ordinary delegates conference on Tuesday morning.
PM Lee noted that the United States is bracing for its unemployment rate to rise above 10 per cent, and the growth in the US, Europe, Japan and China has so far been due to government spending.
‘When the stimulus ends, their economies may slow down again. If that happens, our growth will be dampened too. Even with growth, our unemployment will stay up for some time,’ he said. ‘Therefore, we must be psychologically prepared for dampened growth, or in any event for unemployment to stay up.’
Singapore’s Jobs Credit Scheme to be extended for 6 months on stepped-down rate
Breaking News
Singapore’s Jobs Credit Scheme to be extended for 6 months on stepped-down rate; 1st payment in January 2010 based on 6% of workers’ salary, 2nd payment in April on 3% of salary
—-
SINGAPORE: The Singapore government has announced that it will extend the year-long Jobs Credit Scheme, which was supposed to end in December, by another six months. This will be carried out by having two more payments on a stepped-down rate.
Speaking at the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Ordinary Delegates’ Conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the two extra payments will cost the government S$675 million.
Currently, Jobs Credit payments are made at a rate of 12 per cent of workers’ salary, subject to a S$2,500 cap.
Under the extension, the first payment will be based on employees on payroll in January 2010 at 6 per cent of the salary, while the second payment will be made in April 2010 at 3 per cent of workers’ salary.
One Third of RBS Coutts staff in Singapore quit in mass resignation
Oct 13 (Reuters) – A third of the staff of the Singapore office of RBS Coutts, a private bank that is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) (RBS), have quit in a mass resignation, the bank said on Tuesday.
A spokesman for RBS confirmed a story in the Financial Times that 20 key managers had resigned along with around 50 support staff in a move the newspaper said could be related to bonus prospects.
RBS was rescued by the British government last year and its bonus payments to staff have been under careful scrutiny.
The RBS spokesman said the resignations represented less than 15 percent of the regional headcount.
“Staff volatility in the private banking industry is not unusual, especially in Asia,” the spokesman said.
BREAKING: RBS Coutts Staffs in Mass Resignation
story from financial times:
RBS Coutts, the international arm of the UK private bank, is scrambling to rebuild its flagship Singapore office after the mass resignation of one-third of its staff in the city-state.
The surprise departures include about 20 key managers, as well as 50 or so support staff, some of whom built up lucrative private banking business with rich Indians and Indonesians.
A lack of annual bonus prospects is believed to be a factor behind some of the resignations at the division, owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, which was rescued by the UK government last year.
Senior moves in the private banking industry are sensitive, due to the possibility of colleagues following departing employees to other institutions and taking clients with them. The destinations of the 70-odd staff remain unknown.
The Singapore and Hong Kong offices employ the bulk of the group’s 510 staff in Asia, a region which accounts for about SFr17bn ($16.6bn) – or a quarter – of RBS Coutts’ funds under management.
Seagate Technology to lay off 2,000 employees in Singapore
Seagate Technology announced on Tuesday it would relocate its hard disk drive manufacturing operations from Ang Mo Kio to other existing Seagate facilities by end-2010, laying off some 2,000 employees in the process.
The company said in a statement that this consolidation is necessary in order for it to further increase efficiency and reduce costs by leveraging investments across fewer manufacturing sites.
The statement also said that Singapore would remain a key strategic partner for Seagate, with a focus on high-value activities, and the company would continue to make strategic investments in the country.
Seagate has two other facilities in Singapore, located at Science Park and Woodlands.
Singapore is home to the company’s only hard drive design centre and first volume manufacturing site outside of the United States, and the first Recording Media Operations facilities outside of North America.
Pay holds steady for some diploma, degree graduates
SINGAPORE: While polytechnics and the government are rolling out schemes to help fresh graduates get by in the tight job market, one survey presents another picture: More than 50 per cent of companies are hiring fresh diploma and degree graduates, with salaries at least in some sectors holding steady.
These are engineering, IT and telecommunications, finance and accounting, and logistics, according to a Hay Group’s Fresh Graduate Pay survey. It polled 100 companies in Singapore in May.
“Though companies are recruiting less, they are still willing to pay a fair wage,” said Hay Group Singapore’s country head of reward information services, Mr Christian Vo Phuoc.
Engineering degree-holders attract the highest starting salaries of S$2,700 a month, about S$200 more than the other three professions. Employers are also more optimistic about 2010, forecasting higher starting salaries for these four jobs.
Ms Annie Yap, managing director of recruitment firm AYP Associates said the premium wage is due to a “shortage of engineers” arising from the move to high-tech manufacturing.
Manpower minister urges employers & workers to stay flexible, positive
Stay positive, stay flexible and stay together – that’s how Singapore’s government, labour movement and employers’ federation will weather the global economic downturn.
The annual dialogue brought together key players from Singapore’s tripartite partnership.
One participant said he had no need to send his workers to the national skills upgrading scheme, SPUR, and asked if the subsidies for workers could be turned into additional Jobs Credits instead.
The labour chief, however, replied that SPUR subsidies were not an entitlement for companies.
Secretary-General of NTUC, Lim Swee Say, said: “NTUC will object because you know why? Because if MOM were to suggest that employers can either use SPUR for training or to reduce the payroll, then many employers are going to say, ‘All my workers are 100% trained’.”
One participant said recent talk of a recovery has prompted some to consider leaving their jobs for greener pastures. However, Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong urged a rethink.
