Workers in Taiwan, Singapore etc., prepare for no pay rise in 2009

A recent press release by Grant Thornton International Ltd reviewed that about 21% of privately held businesses around the world plan to freeze their employees' pay rise over the next 12 months, while 3% even expected to reduce pay.

According to their survey, the regions with most respondents indicated no pay rise or even pay cut in 2009, which higher than the global average of 24% are:

• Taiwan - 77%
• Singapore - 49%
• Hong Kong - 44%
• Italy - 42%
• Malaysia - 42%
• Ireland - 39%
• Thailand - 39%
• Russia - 38%
• Mainland China - 35%
• Chile - 30%
• Poland - 28%
• Japan - 28%
• Germany - 24%
• New Zealand - 24%

From the list above, we can observe that developing countries which export economy is very much dependent to the US market are most affected. Even though the global economic crisis is mainly originated from the US this time, 20% of the US respondents has indicated no pay rise or pay cut in 2009, which is still below the global average.

By contrast, countries in the Nordic region appear prepared to be the least affected, with 82% of respondents indicating that they intend to increase salaries by inflation or above compared with the global average of 64%. Denmark topped the league with 91% while businesses in Finland (89%) and Sweden (74%) had similar high expectations.

Therefore, we should prepare for the worst and adjust our personal finance to a more defensive position.

Click here to read the article titled [No pay rises at a quarter of privately held businesses in 2009 - globally] published by Grant Thornton, which also include a longer listing of respondents league.

A money-making and recession-proof good profession

The results of SPM and STPM have just been released recently. The famous question of "what would be a good profession with good prospect to pursue for?" again become a hot topic of discussion now.

A recent chit-chat session with my friends indeed made us found one good profession. Before I tell you the answer, here are some of the characteristics of a "good profession" that you can reference to filter from the others:

• All people need you - your service is required by almost everybody, at least a few times in their lifetime.
• Recession-proof - no matter how good or bad is the economy situation, when the time come, people still need your service.
• Money-making - you should be able to easily earn 5-figure income every month, unless you are voluntarily providing your service for charity.
• No overtime, no on call - you have fixed working hour. No overtime and no need to work during weekend. Even when urgently needed, your client still need to wait for your next working day no matter how emergency the situation will be.
  
• Open your own business - you can work with an organization, or open your own business with your profession and become self-employed.
• Good social status - your profession gives you a very good social status.
• Low risk working environment - your working environment is very low risk, in an air-conditioned room.
• Less stress - normally, you are not required to work under stress.

Well, are you able find a profession that matches with all the conditions above? There are probably not many, but they actually exist, and very common too.

OK. Here is the answer: dentist.

And I'm sure there are some other good professions other than this. If you find any more, please do not hesitate to share out here.

HP and Intel Biggest Warehouse Sale (3 days only)

If you are planning to buy some IT products, here is a good news for you: there will be a 3 days HP and Intel Biggest Warehouse Sale in Klang Valley.

Venue: 3 Two Square (生意坊), Section 14, Petaling Jaya. (Near Sin Chew Daily office)
Date: 20-22 March 2009
Time: 10am - 8pm
Products: HP branded workstations, desktop PCs, laptops, PC accessories, printer supplies, merchandise, etc.

Note that the 1st day (20 March 2009) is exclusively for HP employees, Citibank or Maybank cardholders, media and students only.

Click here for more information about this event in HP website (including location map).