Wednesday, March 18, 2009

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.

at

6 comments:

  1. SupermanMarch 18, 2009 at 8:54 AM

    That is scary. With no pay rise and rising cost of living, we will be having a hard time this year. Will Malaysia still having pay rise as claimed by the politicians that we are safe for the global economy crisis?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Voyager8March 18, 2009 at 9:05 AM

    Hi Superman,

    No pay rise is in the better situation than being retrenched. Nowadays a lot of companies freeze new employment, so it is hard to get a new job after retrenchment.

    Malaysia is in the 5th place on the list.

    The survey was done with more than 7,200 companies globally.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 18, 2009 at 8:08 PM

    Hi Voyager8,

    Your blog is GREAT!

    I stumble upon it when searching some info bout financial specific terms.

    What do mag/newspaper u read to update the financial news? Any good intro?

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMarch 19, 2009 at 1:03 AM

    Many companies in the USA are actually cutting wages.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Voyager8March 19, 2009 at 8:44 AM

    Hi w.mei,

    The Edge has a few publications (online and printed), which are my favourite.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Voyager8March 19, 2009 at 8:48 AM

    Hi John,

    All eyes on President Obama's government.

    Hope that he is able to restore the USA and global economy back to the good-old-day time as soon as possible.

    ReplyDelete