​For those looking for work these days, job security may be a stubbornly elusive goal.

Singapore's labor market is showing signs of Covid-19 strain. Economists have predicted the unemployment rate this year may spike above 5 percent, with 150,000 to 200,000 job losses, even with fiscal aid from the Government.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM said on Wednesday (April 29) announced that total employment excluding foreign domestic workers dropped by 19,000 in the first three months of the year, mainly due to a significant reduction in foreign employment. This is the sharpest contraction since 2003

Employers have already carried out various measures such as: - freeze hiring, - reduce recruitment budgets, - salary cut, - no-pay leave, - retrenchments, and even - rescind job offers.

The main sectors which experienced the drop in employment were manufacturing, construction, Oil & Gas and services, with the services sector experiencing the sharpest decline.

This is as consumer-facing businesses, such as food and beverage (F&B) outlets, retail trade businesses, Airlines and tourism-dependent hotels were most severely affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.

The good news is: some companies are still hiring. We’ve compiled a list of some companies in Singapore who are still hiring right now:

• Amazon:who have been one of the companies that are experiencing a surge in demand and they are hiring quite aggressively.

• CISCO:  The technology powerhouse is supporting corporations with their need to enable workers to be able to work remotely. providing a set of data center’s and video apps such as Webex

• IBM: Despite the crisis the company still plays an integral role of central infrastructure of many companies and countries – company is still hiring data scientists and many other positions

• ByteDance (Tik Tok): Social media app TikTok is all the rage right now, and the COVID-19 quarantine appears to be driving a global TikTok boom.

• FoodPanda: Where would we be without such applications whilst being stuck under lockdown, having meals delivered to the doorstep has become a more common practice.

• Lazada: ecommerce has never been so popular people are panic-buying anything from groceries to toiletries, it’s a fun and busy time to be in the ecommerce industry.

• Johnson & Johnson: American drugmaker Johnson & Johnson recently announced a US$1 billion deal with the U.S. government to create enough manufacturing capacity to make more than 1 billion doses of a vaccine.

If you are looking for a job right now: Stay positive, do the basics of getting your CV ready, job search in the right way and start developing your virtual networking tools. Also take this as a chance to do something different utilise the skills training programs to upgrade yourself with relevant job skills as a means of future-proofing your career.

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