Daily Briefing: Singapore convicts third banker in 1MDB scandal; Falling home prices a boon for luxury market
And here's why young Singaporeans are giving up on looking for jobs.
Singapore convicted a third private banker in connection with the international money-laundering scandal involving state fund 1MDB in neighbouring Malaysia. Yeo Jiawei, a Singaporean former wealth manager with Swiss bank BSI, was convicted after a 12-day trial of witness-tampering and obstructing the city-state's 1MDB-linked investigations. He will be sentenced on Thursday. Check here to get to know the whole story.
Despite the continued drop in private home prices, Singapore’s property market has showed signs of life, with a rejuvenated collective sales market and robust luxury residential sales. Data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) showed that private home prices fell by 10.8 percent over 12 consecutive quarters, while rents dropped by 10.7 percent. Nonetheless, the sales volume for the first nine months of 2016 increased by 9.8 percent year-on-year to 11,993 private units. Read more here.
It’s not the best time to be a fresh grad in Singapore. Amidst depressing news that fresh grads are entering a difficult market comes this dramatically-titled report that claims that more and more 20-somethings have “stopped” looking for jobs, simply because they’re too discouraged. Apparently, young Singaporeans are finding it so difficult to find jobs that meet their requirements that many are throwing in the towel altogether. Some try to start businesses or do freelance work or odd jobs to get by. Click here to know why this is happening.