fedex

This week, amid the tariff rumpus, freight forwarding giant FedEx will inaugurate its direct flight from Singapore to the US mainland with a Boeing 777 freighter, the only logistics company so far to offer such a connection.  

The new service strengthens the Republic’s position as a strategic logistics hub and enhances the region’s connectivity on the transpacific trade route. FedEx says shipments from across South-east Asia can now be consolidated in Singapore before making their journey to the US, streamlining international logistics.

For FedEx’s India-born chief executive officer Rajesh Subramaniam, whose spare time work involves chairing the US-China Business Council, it is all a matter of common sense. 

Although the US is FedEx’s principal market, the Asia-Pacific has the largest footprint of any region it operates in. Singapore houses its regional headquarters, and a centre for excellence that works on advanced digital technology, including applied artificial intelligence.

The direct flight is added evidence of the centrality of the Republic in a region he calls the manufacturing base of the world.

“We are (in some ways) a referendum on the global supply chain on a daily basis,” says Mr Subramaniam. “The supply chains are evolving as we speak, and we get it first hand. In South-east Asia, it is Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor. There is Indonesia, and Vietnam. All these markets are seeing strong growth. In Singapore, we are seeing much growth in healthcare and semiconductor (shipments).”

Separately, FedEx’s business in India is growing “significantly”. 

And while the European business also is booming, he adds that that is more because the firm has outperformed the competition rather than the market has grown spectacularly. That said, in recent weeks, there has been “a little bit of optimism” about the German economy.

Rather like 3M, whose products are used in everything from cars to electronic equipment, FedEx, United Parcel Service (UPS) and other parcel delivery firms are seen as bellwethers of the global economy.

“We are sitting on the inside of the global supply chain,” says Mr Subramaniam.

FedEx’s physical network, he adds, moves nearly US$2 trillion (S$2.64 trillion) in goods annually and generates vast amounts of data. The firm is transforming this data into insights that power new technology for differentiating its business, digitalising customer supply chains and transforming e-commerce.

“There is a lot going on, and we are very excited.”

Even the latest tariff shifts, he believes, are something the company can handle competently for its customers. FedEx has an experienced team of clearance and compliance experts who help enable shipments across more than 220 countries.

Tools like FedEx Tariff Information Hub help customers stay up to date.

“We remain focused on supporting our customers in adapting to the latest regulatory requirements,” he says. “It is important for customers to have paperwork completed correctly ahead of pick-up so shipments can continue to move seamlessly through our network to their final destinations.”

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While growth in Asia provided FedEx some tailwinds, the digital advances in FedEx are also contributing. That aside, these advances are helping senders and intended recipients gain more visibility on shipments, adding to the comfort levels of everyone involved along the pick-up and delivery chain.

Any movement from one country to another involves classifying the commodity being shipped. The digital twin helps with clearing Customs speedily by auto classifying so-called HS (harmonised system) codes, computing duties and taxes so that consumers understand fully landed cost of goods bought, and ensuring customers have the resources and tools to file paperwork required for imports.

“That is our advantage,” says the chemical engineer from the famed Indian Institute of Technology who went on to do an MBA at the University of Texas, Austin. “Lots of companies can do basic algebra, we do advanced calculus.” 

While FedEx does not give a breakdown of its revenue by region, the CEO points out that Apac is its largest operating region. “We go where manufacturing goes, and most manufacturing is centred in this part of the world. We have a growth business here.”

The stress on digitalisation and trimming the fat all round is showing up in company results.

For the fiscal third quarter that ended on Feb 28, FedEx reported revenue of US$22.2 billion. Both operating income and margins improved over the matching quarter in 2024.

That said, perhaps in anticipation of geopolitical headwinds and a consequent slowdown in growth, FedEx guided for fiscal 2025 revenue to be flat or slightly down year over year. It earlier expected revenue to be “approximately flat”.

“Our revised earnings outlook reflects continued weakness and uncertainty in the US industrial economy, which is constraining demand for our business-to-business services,” chief financial officer John Dietrich said in March.

Such sobering news has clouded the market. FedEx shares are down about 25 per cent since the year began. Its market valuation as at April 11’s close is about US$50 billion.

In another development affecting performance, FedEx and the United States Postal Service, its largest customer, ended their air cargo contract in September 2024 after failing to agree on a fresh contract. Rival UPS picked up that business, but from what I hear from Mr Subramaniam, that may have been a blessing.

For fiscal year 2025, while FedEx expected a US$500 million hit to the bottom line from that separation, it looks now that the impact will be only about US$400 million.

The upside, he says, is improved flexibility for FedEx. Without the postal service contract obligations that required specific daytime flights, FedEx has already been able to significantly reduce daytime flight hours and deploy its air and ground network more efficiently.

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Compared with larger rival UPS which is more than a century old, FedEx is a much younger firm and the 57-year-old Mr Subramaniam is only the second CEO in its history. The company was founded in 1971 by Mr Frederick W. Smith, a former Marine Corps officer, who is credited with creating the overnight delivery business.

Mr Smith, who started FedEx at age 27, is now 80, remains as executive chairman and retains a significant chunk of FedEx shares. His son Richard runs a key division.

Founding families can be extremely possessive about their firms and, in an earlier era, Mr Henry Ford II fired the high-profile Lee Iacocca from Ford Motor Company, for no apparent reason. It has passed into corporate legend that when a bemused Mr Iacocca inquired, Mr Ford told him: “It is my name that is on the building.”

Mr Subramaniam bristles when I ask if he feels cramped being bookended by the Smith father and son. “I won’t use that parallel at all. We are a meritocracy and Fred is a fantastic leader and founder.”

The Trivandrum-born Mr Subramaniam was appointed CEO in 2022 and was groomed for the job by Mr Fred Smith. Starting as an associate junior analyst in 1991, he quickly ascended the ranks, and was given multiple responsibilities, including, fortuitously for him, a seven-year stint in Hong Kong starting in 1996, just as the China manufacturing boom began. 

In 2019, he was named chief operating officer and brought onto the FedEx board the following year.

I ask how it is to be only the second CEO in FedEx’s history, and a direct successor to the founder.

“Taking over from the founder-CEO is an altogether higher level of stress but it has been fantastic,” says Mr Subramaniam, who plays tennis on weekends and sometimes goes online for a game of chess. “But as one great scientist said: I can see far because I am standing on the shoulders of a giant.

“I could understand from very early on what Fred wanted to accomplish, and we were able to put in place strategies to get it done.”

What has been accomplished is unquestionably impressive. FedEx today moves US$2 trillion worth of commerce annually. That is made possible by a vast global network of 5,000 facilities, a fleet of some 700 planes, 200,000 trucks and other on-road vehicles, all served by half a million staff – “teammates” in FedEx parlance. Every day, FedEx picks up and delivers 16 million packages.

The coming era could well be marked by significant turbulence on every front, including geopolitical swells. Mr Subramaniam says he draws much inspiration from his nonagenarian father, a former top police official known for decisiveness and integrity.

The journey so far has provided so many opportunities for personal growth that Mr Subramaniam has never thought of looking elsewhere, and FedEx, which has its headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, has been his sole employer. 

Most American CEOs of Indian origin are located on the two US coasts but he says he likes being where he is in Memphis, a city in the south, where the living is easy and schools are cheap.

I joke that Tennessee could not be said to have many state icons – perhaps not a lot more than Jack Daniels whiskey and singer Elvis Presley’s Graceland home.

“What you really need to see in Memphis is not Graceland but the FedEx headquarters,” he shoots back. “I guarantee you would not have seen anything quite like it.”

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a new japan

This week, as I sat down for a conversation with Noboru Saito, the 58-year-old chief executive of iconic cassette maker turned smartphone battery producer TDK – and a company veteran of 36 years – I casually asked his aide about his own employment history.

Turns out the younger man had just made a mid-career move to join TDK, having earlier worked with Japanese tyre giant Bridgestone in Indonesia.

The confident, well-spoken aide in question is one of thousands contributing to a key shift in Japan’s corporate landscape.

In 2024, for the first time, Japanese companies hired more people mid-career than through the graduate intake that had brought in staff such as Mr Saito himself. Those switching jobs are gaining from something unfamiliar in Japan’s corporate life – significant and sudden pay jumps.

In a society where change tended to be glacial, the nascent shift in hiring patterns and rewards is a veritable earthquake challenging norms once taken for granted, such as lifetime loyalty to firms and seniority-based progress up the ranks.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, one of Japan’s three mega banks, is reportedly in the middle of a major overhaul of its human resources planning that could abolish the seniority-based system.

Indeed, it could be emblematic of wider changes sweeping Japan that, taken at the flood, could presage a national resurgence – although you probably wouldn’t be able to tell if you went just by the surface news. 

Slowing growth, ageing citizens

Gross domestic product stagnated in the first quarter, and may not do much better when results for the second quarter are announced soon. Industrial production is expected to fall back in July, after having struggled to grow in the previous two months.

Japan’s acclaimed car industry is gasping against competition from Chinese electric vehicle makers.

 A shock drop in demand in May for 40-year bonds suggests investor appetite for long-dated Japanese paper is wearing thin.

On the societal front, this is the year for its demographics to reach a tipping point when the cost of caring for the elderly overwhelms society’s capacity to bear it, a worry that some years ago prompted a Cabinet minister to urge the elderly to “hurry up and die”.

For every three Japanese who die every minute, only 1.3 babies are born. According to some projections, the population could shrink from about 124 million today to 105 million by 2050.

I travelled in interior Japan a few months ago and was startled to see homes abandoned by the dozen.

Not surprising, when you are aware that the population shrinks by more than 2,400 people every day – a seemingly irreversible decline.

Immigrants, investments come knocking

Time then to say, “Sayonara, Japan”?

Not so soon. Broad currents are gathering that, at the very least, could arrest what seems like Japan’s inexorable decline.

There are stirrings at the macroeconomic, corporate and individual levels that raise optimism.

Some of the movements are remarkable, such as Japan’s exit from a long period of deflation. Others have crept up on the nation. For instance, Japan had two million resident foreigners in 2012. At the end of 2024, that number had soared to 3.8 million, according to figures from the Immigration Services Agency.

Counter-intuitively, given China’s bitter memories of Japan’s imperial past, the Chinese are today the top migrants to Japan and numbered more than 873,000 at the end of 2024.

What is more, anecdotal evidence suggests that this number includes hundreds of Chinese millionaires who have moved at least part of their money there and bought homes.

Vietnamese, South Koreans, Filipinos and Nepalese are other significant sources of in-migration.

Aside from ordinary Japanese themselves beginning to show appetite for investing rather than salting cash away in pillows, the wealthier of the migrants are contributing to a surge in wealth managed out of the country.

By some forecasts, funds managed from Japan are expected to nearly double from US$4.9 trillion (S$6.3 trillion) in 2025, to US$9.6 trillion by 2030. (According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, assets under management in Singapore totalled $5.4 trillion in 2023.)

Why are Chinese moneymen moving to Japan? Many do so because they believe Japan’s close strategic ties to the US offer a sort of cover from Beijing’s long arm that could pressure weaker nations into handing over their assets, or revealing them.

Following Beijing’s crackdown on tech companies, China’s most famous billionaire Jack Ma had made Japan his home for a good part of 2022.

Perhaps the biggest endorsement for Japan came from noted investor Warren Buffett. Starting from 2019, it was revealed just before Mr Buffett retired that he had steadily built up stakes of between 8.53 per cent and 9.82 per cent in five top Japanese trading houses – Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo.

“We simply looked at their financial records and were amazed at the low prices of their stocks,” Mr Buffett explained to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in his 2025 letter.

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Others have noticed too. GMO, the investment and asset management firm co-founded by Mr Jeremy Grantham, another legendary value investor, pronounced itself “overweight” on Japanese equities earlier in 2025.

While Berkshire and GMO may be said to be following the money, so to speak, reports suggest that multinational corporations (MNCs) in a wide set of activities are actively planning to move their Asian headquarters to Tokyo from places such as Hong Kong and Shanghai.

While it is no surprise that defence contractors such as BAE Systems or Lockheed Martin may do so given that Japan is poised to significantly up defence spending, a swathe of German and American companies are also said to be in the process.

In 2024, a study by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan and KPMG reported that about a fourth of respondents were shifting regional management functions to Japan. Reasons offered centred around Japan’s economic, political and social stability and the assurances of intellectual property protection.

Nightlife in the big cities has improved and this, combined with safety of movement, is a big draw for expats.

Long-time resident and Japan enthusiast Jesper Koll says several American firms seeking to put regional headquarters in the country have been in touch with him for advice. Over the last 18 months, he adds, 1,200 non-Japanese received a work permit on average daily.

“This country has become an immigration superpower, and of course, you know, once you switch towards meritocracy, in the way that you evaluate people, all of a sudden, everything opens up... Trust me, you and I want to be reborn as a 23-year-old Japanese.”

You could call that enthusiasm leaping ahead of reality, but Japan is undeniably doing some things right. Financial institutions are phasing out lending to zombie companies and instead channelling savings into investments and making money on net interest margins.

Companies are borrowing to build new plants and facilities. The young are taking out mortgage loans and the state’s big fears are not so much about finding them employment as about a wage-price spiral caused in part by meeting their aspirations.

And company boards are learning to not brush off activist investors who complain about lazy balance sheets. It all makes for a fresh turning of the earth, and potential renewal.

That’s where Japan is today, and what is catching the eye of investors such as GMO, who in turn are flagging it to clients. Konnichiwa to the new Nippon.

Senior columnist Ravi Velloor is a former associate editor and foreign editor of The Straits Times.

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aukus v quad

Asked about the revival of the Quad in March 2018, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s dismissive comment was that while there was no shortage of headline-grabbing news, all this would dissipate “like foam on the Pacific and Indian oceans”.

The remarks were seen as sour Chinese grapes at the time, and subsequent events, for a period, made Mr Wang look like he had made an error of judgment. But could Mr Wang have been right after all?

On the face of it, Quad – short for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – is inching towards being a regional security arrangement, which really was the late Japanese premier Shinzo Abe’s vision when he began promoting the concept in 2007. 

On July 2, 2025, Quad nation coast guard officers completed their first joint sail on board Stratton, a US Coast Guard cutter, which pulled into Guam’s Apra Harbour five days after departing Palau, Micronesia. It was the first time that officers from all four nations – the US, Australia, India and Japan – had drilled together on a single vessel and the most significant security development within Quad since 2020, the year navies of the four had participated in a joint exercise as part of Exercise Malabar, the annual US-India naval wargame.  

Subsequently, official-level meetings grew into leaders’ summits over video link in 2021, then in-person summits, the last held in then President Joe Biden’s home town of Wilmington in September 2024. New Delhi is billed to host the next Quad summit later in 2025.

Notably, the joint sail on the Stratton was completed a day after foreign ministers of the four nations pledged to deepen cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. The July 1 foreign ministers statement issued from Washington targeted China in all but name and expressed “serious concern about the situation in the East China Sea and South China Sea”, including what it called unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion, dangerous and provocative actions, including interference with offshore resource development, the repeated obstruction of the freedoms of navigation and overflight, and the dangerous manoeuvres by military aircraft and coast guard and maritime militia vessels.

It was assessed to be a tad more strident on China than the statement that emerged from the previous year’s meeting, held in Tokyo.

Partners hedge their bets

Against that background, the joint drills on board Stratton do take on additional significance. 

But here’s the thing. Military, and paramilitary drills are planned months in advance. So, while the Stratton drill may have looked like something of a watershed moment, current events nevertheless suggest a weakening of strategic bonds across the trans-Pacific. Interestingly, this time it is not New Delhi wary of upsetting China but America’s most steadfast treaty allies – Japan and Australia – that have started to signal significant hedging.

Some of the pushback is an immediate reaction to US Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby’s demarches to Australia and Japan that they must make clear what role each would play in the security effort, should China invade Taiwan. 

Since the US itself practises a policy of strategic ambiguity on whether or not it would defend Taiwan, this demand fell badly upon the two nations. It fell particularly harshly on Australia, given its track record as an uncomplaining participant in past US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In June, the Pentagon announced a review to ensure that the US had enough industrial capacity to construct nuclear submarines for allies without hampering production for the US military. Canberra is now justly worried that Mr Colby, fully aware that it cannot provide cast-iron guarantees on a joint Taiwan effort, will use this as a ruse to kill Aukus, the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US that involves the trans-Atlantic allies selling advanced nuclear submarines and technology to Australia.

Japan is watching all this carefully; the previous Biden administration had even spoken of Tokyo as a likely partner in a future Pillar 2 of Aukus. Australia had ditched a contract with France for conventional submarines to sign on to Aukus, hugely upsetting Paris. Having passed over the French subs, it now risks not getting the nuclear submarines as well – at least, not in the anticipated timeframe.

Australian impatience with these perceived dodges was fully in view last week, when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivered a lecture in honour of the late prime minister John Curtin and vowed to maintain the Curtin-influenced “confidence and determination to think and act for ourselves. To follow our own course, and shape our own future”. 

Earlier, Mr Albanese had firmly said: “My government will continue to cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in our national interest.”

A more assured China

If the US State Department and Pentagon look askance at such developments, the blame lies squarely on President Donald Trump’s America First policy for upending too much around the region. A decade ago, the US was the stable, predictable power and China, the unpredictable one. Today, that has reversed. Optically, Beijing’s cool-headedness in the face of a blow-hot-blow-cold Trump has raised China’s stature, even as the US diminishes itself day by day.

Besides, Mr Trump has often been personally disdainful of allies and partners. Just look at the way he has handled Mr Albanese, who has been recently strengthened at home as only the second Australian prime minister in two decades to win consecutive three-year terms. Yet, he hasn’t secured a summit with Mr Trump.

Meanwhile, the Australian leader has just finished a six-day trip to China whose highlights included being feted with two banquets on a single day by the Chinese leadership – lunch and dinner. 

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It wasn’t as though Mr Xi was playing nice with Mr Albanese because he held a weak hand. Quite the contrary, in fact. 

“The Chinese are in a confident mood,” Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said recently at an Aspen forum – a reading that conforms with what others have noticed as well. Former Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran, who speaks perfect Chinese, recently returned from China to report that there seemed to be “a new geopolitical assurance”, thanks to assumptions about the decline of the US.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Australia and the other Quad members feel a need to trim their sails to the new winds. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba recently told a party meeting that if the US thinks “Japan ought to follow what America says as we depend heavily on them, then we need to work to become more self-sufficient in security, energy and food, and less dependent on America”.

Even if Japan has managed to escape with a 15 per cent US tariff rate, Mr Ishiba would certainly not be pleased that Mr Trump made him look small by shooting him a letter earlier in July announcing a unilateral 25 per cent tariff on goods shipped to the US from Japan. The Asian Development Bank has just cut its growth forecasts for Quad members Japan and India, citing the tariffs. So much for special relationships.

What is more, the recently concluded Upper House election has not only weakened Mr Ishiba – who insists he will stay on in office – but could have long term implications for the US alliance. A good part of the appeal to Japanese voters of Mr Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party stems from it being the political vehicle most trusted by Washington to run Japan.

As for India, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar – once seen as a China hawk – arrived in Beijing more than two days early for a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation foreign ministers held in mid-July. Observers noted that some of his bilateral meetings with China, held in a chamber of the Great Hall of the People, were meaningfully beneath the backdrop of a mural depicting the Himalayas. The undemarcated boundary lines along those mountains are the principal source of tension between the two Asian giants. 

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While some Chinese commentators are portraying the Australian and Indian outreaches as capitulation, and a failure of their individual balancing strategies, the reality is that all Quad members are now de-risking from the US, or may need to. It is just that some, like Australia, make their sentiments plain. Others, like India, are careful to not reveal the full extent of their dismay.

New Delhi has tried to limit the dissonance evident in its bilateral ties with Washington. For instance, its Trade Minister Piyush Goyal’s recent jibe that Asean is “China’s B-team” echoes US Trade Adviser Peter Navarro describing Vietnam as “essentially a colony of Communist China”. But Mr Trump’s recklessness has reduced India’s strategic options significantly, and weakened pro-US voices in its government.

The Quad summit in New Delhi will likely take place but the warmth if any that Mr Trump feels on arrival will likely be more from the climate than the goodwill of his host and other Quad partners. Not bad, Wang Yi.

Brexit india

Since 2016, the largest source of immigrants to Canada has been India. After Brexit, South Asian nations led by India sent the most numerous immigrants to the United Kingdom.

Australia once preferred immigrants from Britain and Ireland. Around the turn of the century and until about 2010, the Chinese led the numbers. Latterly, it has been Indians who have been the top immigrants.

Why do so many Indians leave India? The South Asian giant, now the world’s largest by population, has a briskly expanding economy. Its people have wide access to the world, thanks to a booming aviation sector that’s reaching Tier 2 cities – flights to Singapore’s Changi Airport alone number 290 a week – and an increasing number of countries offering them visa-free entry or visas on arrival.

From Himalayan glades to beaches to wildlife sanctuaries, there’s so much of the country to enjoy. Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims have plenty of spots to visit. And if shopping is your passion, both classy local and foreign designer labels are easily available. Ditto, if you are looking for rejuvenation therapy.

What then is it that India cannot offer that makes emigration such a cherished goal, even for its elite classes?

The truth of the matter is that Indians, particularly from the coastal areas, have always been great migrants – just as they have been welcoming of people arriving from distant lands. An old saw has it, for instance, that when Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed on the moon, they were approached by a man from Kerala who ran a tea shop there.

A common word for Muslims in that south-western Indian state is moplah, a corruption of mapilla or son-in-law. Why so? Because Arab traders seeking the state’s rich spices had brought Islam to the state in the 7th century, and some fell into the practice of taking local wives.

When Islam became the dominant West Asian faith, Muslim Arabs and their local descendants came to be called moplahs.

Conversely, according to the United Arab Emirates’ official statistics, Indians today are the largest expatriate community in the emirates.

Elsewhere, even as Turks and Persians arrived in ancient India from the north-west, rulers in the south-east of the land sent expeditions into what are now Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Waves of migration

The structured Indian emigration though is a modern phenomenon – one that has gained attention as a phenomenon that has helped shape economies and societies abroad.

The first large-scale organised migration took place under British rule when indentured labour was sent out as far as Fiji in the Pacific and Trinidad in the Atlantic. A second wave took place in free India, when the Gulf nations started booming in the 1970s following the discovery of oil. A third phase arose shortly after “professional middle-class” engineers and doctors moved out to developed nations such as the UK and the US.

The Indian diaspora now extends to 210 countries and overtook the Chinese diaspora a decade ago in terms of spread and density.

In his latest book Secession Of The Successful, Dr Sanjaya Baru, a geo-economist and former media adviser to the late prime minister Manmohan Singh, examines this phenomenon, including how attitudes towards emigration have shifted both in government circles and intellectual circles.

Half a century ago, he points out, celebrated economists such as the trade guru Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University fretted about the “brain drain” from India. But in March 2024, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, speaking in Singapore, offered a different perspective, noting that India’s burgeoning relationships with Singapore, the US and UK would not have been the same without what he referred to as the “diaspora factor”.

“An expansion of the global workplace is to India’s benefit,” Dr Jaishankar went on to say. “It is not something which is to India’s detriment.”

Dr Baru is on firm ground here. Indeed, with job creation proving to be such a challenge domestically, India seems to have a far more relaxed view of emigration.

A person who is closely linked with the employment issue says the government’s strategy on non-farm job creation could be loosely described as resting on three pillars: promoting entrepreneurship that leads to self-employment, a little over a third of the workforce absorbed by the organised private and public sectors including the military and bureaucracy, and a smaller chunk of the semi-skilled and highly skilled that the state hopes could be profitably placed overseas.

Continued access to H-1B visas for Indians, as Dr Baru points out, often figures in US-India bilateral discussions.

The rich pack their bags

It is the current, fourth wave of Indian out-migration that Dr Baru identifies – that of the children of the wealthy, and in many cases the power elite themselves – that must concern India. At home, they constitute a privileged class, but the future of their families is no longer tied to the future of India.

According to a Morgan Stanley report that he cites, some 23,000 Indian millionaires had left the country since 2014, the year Mr Narendra Modi came to power.

A survey by Kotak Mahindra Bank suggested that one in five high net worth individuals it had contacted across a dozen cities had plans to move their home base overseas. In 2024, an international consortium of journalists and data miners reported that Indians were the largest property-owning foreign group in Dubai – 29,700 Indians owning 35,000 properties.

NRIs or non-resident Indians, he points out, using the widely used term for overseas Indians, have become non-returning Indians. The number of Indians renouncing their citizenship touched 206,378 in 2024, soaring from 85,256 in 2020.

What drives this? According to Dr Baru, acquiring a global footprint for their business may be one reason, and social pressure from wives and children to live in more comfortable climes is possibly another.

But there’s a third reason that’s relevant for India’s economic future: seeking shelter from excessive taxation and intrusive tax administration at home.

Indians now account for close to one in 10 of all golden visa holders worldwide.

Among the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, Indians top the list of new immigrants with 407,000 of them entering OECD countries in 2021.

Henley and Partners, an international consultancy that advises the wealthy, says 4,300 Indian millionaires moved out of India in 2024 – with UAE as their top choice, overtaking Singapore.

Only the UK and China topped those numbers for emigrating millionaires. While Singapore has attracted more of the professional upper middle-class and children of the Indian power elite, Dubai has attracted more of the business elite, notes Dr Baru. Either way, India’s metropolitan elite are running scared.

“All of them are running away from the Delhi Darbar, which is now increasingly arbitrary, intrusive and opaque and manned by a bureaucracy that has its roots in less developed small towns and conservative Hindu India.”

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The issues that emerge from Secession Of The Successful raise questions for both India and the countries that receive Indian emigrants.  

Let’s start with India. Anecdotal evidence confirms that perceptions of an intrusive tax regime are indeed a key impetus for the flight of the elite. But Dr Baru fails to give adequate recognition to why this is so.

Indians are notoriously reluctant taxpayers even as they like to whine about their poor public services. Second, to the Indian government’s credit, the tax administration has been streamlined considerably; refunds, for instance, are impressively prompt.

But along with this has come the increasing ability of the Indian state to both soak up data on individuals and cross-connect this information. This, really, is what has caused the sense of siege among the wealthy.

Dr Baru captures a part of the irony, though. While their business leaders seek high tariff walls to keep out competition, he notes drily, they also demand a liberal regime to move their wealth out.

What does this capital flight mean for India? And should this movement of money be begrudged when Indians overseas remitted home a record US$130 billion (S$167 billion) or so in 2024?

“Such flights need to be treated as a vote of no confidence in the medium-term outlook for the Indian economy,” Dr Baru told me in a phone conversation.

“Last fiscal year, outward Indian FDI (foreign direct investment) exceeded FDI inflows to India. The flight of human and finance capital at this stage of India’s development can by no means be good for India. The pity is that over the last 25 years, we have simply come to accept it.”

What they bring to the table

What of the recipient nations? For the most part, Indian settlers have contributed greatly to their lands of adoption and assimilated without compromising on their Indian identity. Along the way, they have gained a reputation for being a law-abiding community and one with deep family values.

In the US, for instance, highly qualified Indians have not only contributed knowledge power, their skills have heightened American competitiveness and the global success of US corporations.

Their reputation for good citizenship in fact opened new doors for them, and second-generation migrants have even obtained trusted public positions.

That’s in part because unlike, say, a China that is thought to have tapped its diaspora for its strategic ends, the Indian government has not really sought anything much from them except the remittances they send home of their own accord.

Founding prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru would in fact remind overseas Indians that they should seek to integrate into their host countries, a message I recall the late prime minister Narasimha Rao repeating in late 1994 at a community event in Singapore.

Likewise, says Dr Baru, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told the inaugural Overseas Indians Day in 2004 that those who take up foreign citizenship should stay loyal to their host country and integrate with its society.

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Secession Of The Successful also draws attention to latter-day developments that governments everywhere will study closely.

Dr Baru warns that the growing public assertion by Indians abroad of their religious affiliation and social and political mobilisation based on such affiliation have contributed to concerns about overseas Indians mixing religion and politics.

“Hindu nationalism” in the home country is impacting host countries that are themselves battling challenges to multiculturalism and religious pluralism. This, he says, has long-term implications for how Indians are viewed. Ironically, he adds, proponents of global Hindutva rarely if ever seek to return to India.

Indians overseas must pay heed. The broader Indian community would do well to emulate the example of their Parsi brethren who, as Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo once pointed out, carry a reputation of “sweetening the milk that is their host”.

It would be feckless on their part, for instance, to import the faith-based politics of the home country into their adopted ones. In countries like Canada and Australia, this has become a serious issue – enough of a worry for governments to even consider curbs on Indian migrants.

Whatever the reasons – I am inclined to think pride in India’s resurgence, the ease of communication and real-time access to information about the mother country are facilitating a sort of dual mental citizenship that helps the migrant stay engaged with events both at home and in India simultaneously – Indian migrants will thrive if they are better residents of America, Australia and Singapore.

Ravi Velloor is senior columnist at The Straits Times.

trump v india

US President Donald Trump’s whimsical approach to tackling what he sees as Indian recalcitrance to bow to his diktat and curb Russian oil purchases – which would help pressure Moscow on Ukraine – has seen him slap a combined 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods imported into the US.

The latest reports suggest that India and the US are about to sit down to negotiate the final stretch of a bilateral trade agreement that should be announced by the first week of October. Emollient exchanges between Mr Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the last weekend notwithstanding, it is clear that New Delhi will need to make significant concessions in order to protect an estimated US$60 billion (S$77 billion) of the US$87 billion it exports to the US.

In likely winkling a lowered tariff regime from New Delhi, Mr Trump may unwittingly be doing India a big favour. On trade, he could likely prise open a market which has seen tariffs actually rise since 2015, and one that failed to prepare for competition by using the time it bought for itself by withdrawing from trade deals like the RCEP to introduce meaningful market reform.

His moves have already prompted a rethink in India, which could eventually work to its advantage.

Strategically, by placing roughly the same amount of tariff upon it as it has on China, which the US has dubbed a strategic rival, Mr Trump has primed New Delhi to proceed more cautiously with its steady embrace of Washington and hew closer to its traditional non-aligned line, now refashioned as multi-alignment. Mr Modi’s diplomatic outreach to Beijing suggests awareness that geography is not easily transcended. Renewed efforts to clinch a swift trade deal with the European Union – first considered in 2007 – will widen India’s trading options once accomplished.

Revelling in crises

India is generally regarded as a reactive state and its post-independence history suggests that once pressured, it has a history of riding out its setbacks and emerging more resilient. 

Time and again, prime ministers from the late Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh to now, Mr Narendra Modi, have found opportunities to turn a crisis into significant advantage, often citing external compulsions to force through difficult internal reforms.

The latest example is the recent simplification of GST rules and slashing of rates that take effect from Sept 22, leading to a surge of confidence among Indian manufacturers as they prepare for the Deepavali festival season. Even as it turned India into a single common market, the complex GST system had badly needed fixing.

Now, as New Delhi seeks to pump up the domestic market to compensate for the expected drop in exports, the GST has been slashed to just two slabs – one of 5 per cent, and another of 18 per cent – for most goods and services. The earlier four-tier structure ranged from 5 per cent to 28 per cent.

While the tariffs may eventually be rolled back by Mr Trump himself, or even declared illegal by the US Supreme Court, these reforms will endure. That raises expectations that the 7.8 per cent GDP expansion recorded in the April to June quarter may resume after a widely expected tariff-induced slowdown in the second half of 2025.

The reset of China ties also could presage a surge in Chinese capital investments through the joint venture route, as firms like BYD seek to tap into the expanding Indian market. 

All that has helped India maintain much of its swagger amid the Trump difficulties. The benchmark Sensex ticked up on news that the US and India are poised to earnestly conclude trade talks, and is up nearly 10 per cent for the past six months.

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Mr Christoph Schweizer, CEO of Boston Consulting Group, said he recently returned from a trip to tariff-struck India that was “brimming with optimism and ambition” as it heads towards being a US$7 trillion economy by 2030, from just over US$4 trillion now. 

While some 14 per cent of India’s overall trade is indeed affected by the tariffs, it has been improving access to other markets through agreements, for example, with Australia and the UK, he noted. And it also will trade more with Asean, West Asia and Africa.

As for long-term challenges, such as AI and automation, he believes India is well-positioned for those as well.

“In my conversations with CEOs, I noticed that Indian companies have two other strengths that matter for AI. These are a healthy scepticism that ensures AI investments will achieve a healthy return on investments, and secondly, once they decide to invest, they have the ability to move fast and change how employees deliver their work.”

Not just the recent Trump-induced measures, a look at some key events would suggest that it has generally performed well when under pressure.

Take food, for instance.

The great famines India suffered may have ended with the exit of British colonialists but food shortages persisted. In 1954, India signed a long-term agreement with the US called PL-480 (short for Public Law 480) under which it got food aid after it agreed to allow private players to operate in its nascent industrial and agricultural sectors. Some of the food sent was unfit for human consumption and successive prime ministers found the deal humiliating.

In the 1960s, India launched what came to be recognised later as the “Green Revolution” which introduced high-yielding varieties of seeds and expanded irrigation systems. Its success led to India cancelling the PL-480 agreement and the country eventually became a net exporter of grain. Today, it is the world’s No. 1 seller of rice on global markets.

Opening up further

In 2020, the Modi government did introduce measures to deregulate the agricultural sector, but they were sought to be rammed through without preparing the ground. Eventually, the government backed off because of the sustained political backlash. The negotiations with the US offer India a second window of opportunity to push farm reforms in a more thoughtful way.

Farm products may be a politically sensitive sector, but there are other sectors that should comfortably withstand competition. For instance, given the rising popularity of Indian spirits worldwide – single malt whisky and craft gin, particularly – New Delhi can afford to be more confident about opening up its alcohol market.

Likewise, the 1991 economic reforms initiated by the Narasimha Rao government, and helmed by then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, came on the back of a severe economic crisis which saw the pledging of Indian gold reserves and a perilous drop in foreign exchange reserves to just two weeks of imports.

Once the reforms mandated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) kicked in, the economy sprang to life. Exposed to competition, and riding the telecom boom at home, companies with names such as TCS and Infosys began grabbing global markets. Foreign exchange reserves began to climb. Today, India has forex reserves of US$694 billion – enough to cover about a year’s imports.

A similar ability to bounce back has shown up elsewhere too, including in technology. 

After it first tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, the country faced technology sanctions from the US and Canada, particularly in the nuclear field. That speeded up the indigenous nuclear and space programmes. Likewise, after the US cancelled plans to sell India the Cray X-MP supercomputer in the late 1980s citing worries that India may use it for its nuclear and satellite programmes rather than the claimed purpose of weather forecasting, India swiftly built its own supercomputer, the Param 8000, at a fraction of the cost.

More sanctions followed after the series of nuclear tests ordered by the Vajpayee government in 1998, and each time the indigenous effort – alongside efforts to reach out to friendly countries willing to assist – gathered momentum. In the recent military clash with Pakistan, several of the home-developed weapons seemed to have performed well whereas some of the notable losses were of French and Russian manufacture.

India also found satisfaction that after the 1998 tests, the US itself began to roll back some of the sanctions as it slowly swung towards India out of geopolitical considerations. Indeed, the Clinton administration initiated a strategic dialogue with India that led to a dramatic improvement in bilateral ties during his second term, and the first presidential visit to the country in more than two decades. 

Every US president, including Mr Trump in his first term, has built on that foundation. Given Mr Trump’s mercurial ways, it is not inconceivable, therefore, that ties with India may eventually be even tighter by the time he leaves office.

To be sure, the Trump tariffs are not to be treated lightly. And India indeed is assiduously taking steps to influence Washington’s thinking, including using back channels and spending millions on multiple lobbyists with known connections to influential figures around Mr Trump and his family.

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And while it may have proven to be resilient in the past, New Delhi simply cannot afford a full-blown tariff war with the US – for instance, one that would risk tariffs on exports of services or pharmaceuticals which the Trump tariffs have exempted thus far. 

Technology services exports are powerful employment drivers in India, and fuel its consumer-led expansion.

Mr Vivek Pandit, co-leader of McKinsey’s private equity and principal investment group, put that in perspective in a recent conversation with the Financial Times. While he projected India’s contribution to global GDP rising to 8 per cent in 2040, from 3.5 per cent in 2023, he also noted that exports will play a key role in that expansion.

“To put it simply, if you look at the last 30 to 40 years, there are only 10 to 12 economies in the world which have grown at 7 per cent for 20 to 25 years, and none of them has done it without export markets being a significant part of that growth,” he told the FT.

By putting pressure on India, Mr Trump has jolted it out of its complacency.

In other words, never underestimate the capacity of Americans to blunder – who knows, it might even eventually turn out to your benefit.

Ravi Velloor is senior columnist at The Straits Times.

Indonesia discontent runs deep

Indonesia’s week-long protests that culminated in violence in Jakarta and elsewhere is the sort of nightmare that South-east Asia’s largest nation can live without.

The aftershocks have barely ended; Dr Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the respected finance minister, has had to go, falling on her own sword as the leadership looks for scapegoats for a series of mis-steps of their own doing, as well as wider forces at play.

The proximate trigger for the unrest may have been the 50 million rupiah (S$3,900) monthly housing allowance initiated for MPs (many of them owned good homes already), and mobs angered by the death of a Gojek rider struck down by a speeding police vehicle. But some would argue the problems date back longer, and even to before the current administration.

In truth, several streams fed the river of discontent that spilled out in Indonesia in September. 

The squeeze

Viewed from the ground up, the most obvious is the economic squeeze.

Household budgets have shrunk. In August, the price of rice, Indonesia’s most widely consumed staple, was up 6.2 per cent from a year ago. There have been significant job losses in manufacturing. The Indonesian Fiber and Filament Yarn Producer Association reckons that the country shed a quarter-million jobs in textiles and apparel industries over the past two years, and this could worsen in 2025. 

An estimated 10 million of Gen Zers are looking for work. Jobs created have been largely informal or in the gig economy, with little protection. Foreign direct investment flows have started to slide.

The Indonesian middle class had started to contract even before President Prabowo Subianto came to power and in most societies, unrest usually begins with this class before it spreads.

Against this backdrop, the ferment on the ground is unsurprising. But what has brought things to a tipping point is the self-perpetuating nature of Indonesian politics combined with the ostentatious display of wealth by a complacent elite.

Mr Prabowo came into office promising “efficiency”. Instead, he formed a bloated Cabinet – with 48 ministers and 55 vice-ministers. That is significantly more than Mr Joko Widodo’s initial Cabinet size of 34 ministers and 30 vice-ministers.

This generation of Indonesians, informed by TikTok, WhatsApp and other social media, grasp what is going on; a generous distribution of loaves and fishes to cap political dissent, preventing their concerns to surface in a normal and legitimate way. 

When normal routes of expression are blocked, they take matters into their own hands and particularly against those they see as co-opted.

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The looting of National Democratic Party (NasDem) MP Ahmad Sahroni’s unoccupied home – jewellery and watches, and even the destruction of his sports car – suggests a herd instinct to even the score. NasDem, once contesting against Mr Prabowo, now supports the President.

Then there’s the discomfort with where the government is headed.

Under Mr Prabowo, shadows of Indonesia’s pre-1998 history have resurfaced. From whispered takeovers of private golf clubs for the military’s use on Saturdays – when the brass have their own golf course – to retired military men taking up key positions in various companies, there is a sense that Mr Prabowo is falling back upon the senior uniformed class that he knows best. 

Some see in this a subtle attempt to cloak manoeuvres to amass power and influence with nationalism.

In November 2024, Minister for State-owned Enterprises Erick Thohir ordered that all offices of state-owned companies must play the Indonesia Raya anthem daily at 10am. 

The military shadow over the Prabowo government is unmistakable even if rumours in Jakarta of a military-backed emergency rule are far-fetched.

Indonesians view their democracy as a hard-won prize. They do not want to backslide into the excessive centralisation that marked the Suharto era, of which Mr Prabowo was once a part.

A controversial programme

What of his economic management? And the welfare programmes that are seen as the building blocks for a second term in office?

It is tempting to take aim at his free school meals programme, as several commentators and mainstream economists have done. Without question, the outlay for this is not small at up to 335 trillion rupiah (S$26 billion), or almost 9 per cent of the entire government budget.

In my mind, to knock the programme on the basis of economics is to take an elitist view of things.

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Properly run, these meals can promote school enrolments, particularly of girls, improve class attendance, and provide vital protein critical to child development. 

The problem is that the Prabowo government seems to have botched the implementation of the programme. Disbursements of funds have been slow. Anecdotal accounts of administrative chaos are abundant. And the few cases of food poisoning unhelpful. Falsehoods as well; one story that got wide circulation is that the steel food trays imported from China are coated with pork oil.

The result has been that goodwill the government should have earned on this account has curdled into dissent.

‘Mafia figures’

And as always, when matters are turning sour, all sorts of elements will try to capitalise. In Indonesia, the adjustment established interests have had to make to the new figures at the helm – licences for mining rights not automatically renewed is one example – suggests conflict within key interest groups. 

The targeting of key figures including Dr Sri Mulyani by protesters, who clearly had been supplied precise addresses, suggests dark hands at play. Mr Prabowo himself has spoken of “mafia figures” fomenting unrest. 

Indonesian soldiers standing guard outside the residence of Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati in Jakarta, on Aug 31, 2025. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

The top-down perception? That seven identified interest groups were seen to be taking an extraordinary interest in the unrest. These apparently include a Cabinet figure, a small section of the armed forces, and even speculation about an external element – a key political leader in a South-east Asian nation close to the oil tycoon Mohammed Riza Chalid who is currently absconding from the law in Indonesia. Chalid is being probed in a $23 billion corruption case involving oil giant Pertamina.

Raised in the military culture, Mr Prabowo could have reacted harshly to the latest unrest. However, he has handled matters with restraint, lining up leaders of other parties beside him as he appealed for calm. His predecessor Joko Widodo has not been in public view though, and has stayed silent throughout the unrest. 

The split with Joko Widodo

Mr Joko’s son is Mr Prabowo’s deputy, his appointment an obligation that Mr Prabowo kept in return for Mr Joko’s support for his presidency, which he successfully contested against a candidate from Mr Joko’s own PDI-P party.  

The Jokowi-Prabowo relationship is wearing thin for a variety of reasons, including the arrest of one-time Jokowi Cabinet minister Nadiem Makarim. The billionaire founder of the GoJek ride-hailing and payments platform, Nadiem is suspected of corruption in the purchase of laptops for the government.

Vexingly for Mr Joko, Mr Prabowo’s welfare-oriented government has turned its attention away from the Nusantara new capital city project that he had promoted as his signature contribution to Indonesia.

Observers note that while Mr Joko had taken the salute in Nusantara on national day in 2024, Mr Prabowo chose to take the salute in the presidential palace in Jakarta in August 2025.

What’s more, even before the recent protests had entirely subsided, he dashed off to China to attend the Victory Day parade. There he received assurances about Chinese help to build an US$80 billion (S$102.6 billion) seawall primarily meant to protect people along the northern coast of Java, including Jakarta, as well as funds to build a high-speed rail linking Jakarta to Surabaya. 

These are not the actions of a president who is committed to Nusantara but one more focused on the current capital.

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Mr Joko has no reason to look kindly on his successor.

Mr Prabowo, for his part, has plenty to think about. Though he himself has not been a target of the people’s anger, protests so early in his administration suggest some difficult choices ahead – for instance, whether to continue costly welfare or shift focus to job creation.

The new finance minister has plenty to think about as he settles into the job.

Ravi Velloor is senior columnist at The Straits Times.

jobs for fresh graduates

SINGAPORE - It’s never been easy landing that first job, but today’s fresh graduates face a particularly tough market, with some employers putting hiring on hold and others replacing entry-level workers with artificial intelligence.

Competition for a shrinking pool of jobs, particularly in choice industries like banking and technology, is rife. It’s no longer uncommon for fresh graduates to apply for more than 100 jobs without ever hearing back, or facing multiple rounds of interviews without success. Now, they’re urged to lower their pay expectations and labelled “entitled” if they turn down jobs that don’t fit their career goals or life plans.

Looking for work in this environment can be overwhelming, even demeaning, for young and eager graduates.

Yet, data shows that jobs are still available for fresh graduates in many industries, while the long-term unemployment rate for Singapore residents is just 0.9 per cent, a healthy figure that is also lower than that in both neighbouring Malaysia and the US.

There appears to be a mismatch in the jobs available and the roles fresh graduates aspire to or qualify for. To get ahead, those struggling to land positions need to rethink their career paths and be prepared to make some detours or even change course.

Explore other industries

If jobs in the more coveted sectors are elusive, there is no shame in pivoting to less conventional industries where demand for young talent remains strong, and the rewards in pay and career growth can be just as compelling.

In shipping, for instance, companies like G2 Ocean are looking for fresh graduates that simply have a keen interest in the industry. “It doesn’t matter what degree they have,” Mr Lim Sim Keat, managing director of G2’s Pacific operations, told me.

With Singapore investing heavily in its reputation as a maritime hub for the region, I am told most maritime graduates from local universities are snapped up even before they have officially left school, as shipping companies are looking to groom young talent for bigger roles in a growing, global industry.

At G2, fresh graduates start on trainee programmes, rotating across divisions such as ship operations, chartering, legal and insurance, and business development, before being assigned the roles they are best suited to.

Given the common misconception that working in shipping requires long periods at sea, it may surprise you that vessel operators perform important office-based work planning and monitoring voyages, coordinating with ships and ports, and ensuring that cargo arrives on schedule.

In the energy sector, too, what matters most to companies like offshore engineering giant Seatrium isn’t specific skills or qualifications, but the grit to negotiate with global energy firms, and the willingness to take on project management roles abroad and outside the office.

In a recent interview with The Straits Times, Seatrium chief executive Chris Ong said the industry needs younger hands to help drive the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, a growing priority not just in Singapore, but worldwide.

His advice to graduates: don’t focus on whether you get to work in an office in the Central Business District or a yard in Tuas, but on embracing opportunities across functions and geographies that can take you further in your career later on. The energy industry, he added, is where the younger generation can truly make a difference.

That’s not saying graduates with degrees in finance, law or tech end up wasting their knowledge by joining industries that appear unrelated to their course of study.

When I spoke with Mr Chua Chye Poh, general partner at venture capitalist ShipsFocus, he explained that the industry needs graduates trained in a host of areas unrelated to shipping. Finance graduates are needed to structure deals and manage investors, for example, and expertise ranging from software engineering to sales, marketing, legal and insurance are in demand to support a rapidly digitalising industry.

So, be open to exploring adjacent opportunities in alternative industries, and approach roles that may not initially align with your plans with curiosity and flexibility. You might discover exciting career paths.

Work part-time to fill the gap

Take up part-time work while waiting for that dream job. This doesn’t just fill a gap in your resume, but tells employers about your attitude and whether you’re proactive, resilient and adaptable.

While doing gig work for delivery platforms and start-ups is an option, there’s no better place to look for part-time roles than in industries where manpower is in demand, like in food and beverage (F&B).

While the sector isn’t usually the first choice for fresh graduates given its unglamorous reputation for long, back-breaking hours, difficult customers and lower pay, it exposes you to the realities and ethics of work. It will also help you build discipline and empathy, key characteristics bosses look for even before they meet you.

And, contrary to the perception that the skills and knowledge gathered from years of tertiary education may go to waste, joining F&B can in fact teach those without work experience valuable people and management skills, such as customer service, team coordination, handling high-pressure situations and problem-solving on the spot.

“I love these people,” Mr Chua of ShipsFocus told me, when I asked him if he would hire fresh graduates who have spent some time working in fields like F&B before accepting a full-time job. Not only does it demonstrate that they are being productive with their time, it shows humility and positivity, he said.

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There are other benefits, too, such as starting to earn, save and invest early while waiting for a proper job, which is always wise.

Mr Cheong Hai Poh, president of the International Food & Beverage Association based in Singapore, tells me that the local F&B sector is easily accessible to fresh graduates, especially front-line roles like being part of the service crew or cafe staff and kitchen and production work, which includes research and development and commercial baking.

While these roles typically pay below the national graduate median of $4,500, with service crew and kitchen staff starting at around $2,300 per month, and skilled production bakers earning up to $3,000, the industry offers flexible part-time options across a range of establishments. As the sector becomes more tech-driven, the work has also grown less physically demanding than in the past.

Find a role overseas

Another option is finding a job overseas, particularly in emerging market economies, where your skills, perspective and knowledge will be appreciated by local companies, and where the resilience you show and the experience you gain will make you more valuable to employers, fast track your career and mould you for bigger roles in the future.

I can attest to this, having spent four years working for The Myanmar Times in Yangon between 2017 and 2021.

My experience in a management role and interactions with international business leaders during my time there showed me that the willingness to step out of one’s comfort zone to take on work abroad can be highly valuable to both the overseas employer and future bosses.

At The Myanmar Times, I lost count of the times we could have tapped skilled Singapore graduates to clean up and make sense of translated copy, interview chief executives and business leaders, or contribute fresh ideas when we were building our marketing and video departments.

You’ll be a big help to firms in emerging markets, who will need your skills to build processes, lead operations, or take on tech, finance, marketing and communications roles, opportunities to enrich your career that you will not find at home.

When I returned from my stint in Yangon, I was not only able to find meaningful work at The Straits Times’ Business desk, but I also found that my bosses and colleagues valued my views and experience.

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Working abroad, whether in developed or emerging economies, enriches your skills and experience. No wonder, the Government has rolled out programmes to encourage Singaporeans to gain experience overseas.

For example, the Singapore Global Executive Programme, which targets relatively fresh graduates with less than three years of work experience, offers overseas attachments and business trips that provide them with market knowledge and a global perspective. Participants go through at least two job rotations, with access to mentorship and networking.

So, don’t be too stressed if your career goals or life plans seem stifled in today’s job market. The key to staying ahead lies in your ability to adapt by changing course when needed, learning from every role you take on, and trusting that the process can open up alternative pathways to a rewarding career.

Kang Wan Chern is deputy business editor at The Straits Times.

perimenopause

SINGAPORE – Perimenopause is hell. Just trust me when I say it.

Families who don’t yet know what the word means, please count yourself lucky.

Not-for-profit medical group practice Mayo Clinic describes perimenopause as “the time before menopause when your body is getting ready to stop having periods. Perimenopause is sometimes called the menopausal transition”.

How clinical and boring. While it may be biologically accurate, it could not be further from the hellish reality which is perimenopause.

My wife, F, describes it as a new operating system that downloaded overnight. And the next morning, nothing works the same as before, and you have funky new features you’ve never encountered. Your old settings are forgotten, and you’ll have to find inconvenient workarounds.

As a partner still trying to survive perimenopause, I would just say it’s an operating system refresh that no one expects, and it doesn’t just affect the woman. It affects everyone in the family, necessitating this survival guide.

This piece is written with heavy input from my wife, as we have lived through perimenopause for almost 1½ years now.

One day, my wife of more than two decades was fine, and the next day, I didn’t recognise the woman sleeping next to me any more.

Hormonal havoc

Many women going through perimenopause describe it as hormonal hell. The “flames” include brain fog, mood swings, anxiety, depression, exhaustion and insomnia, all stemming from hormonal fluctuations that disrupt brain chemicals and energy regulation.

What people don’t often talk about is that the family goes through it too.

Perimenopause caused my wife to start heating up like a cellphone with a faulty battery during charging. Remember those Samsung Notes that burst into flames on flights? Welcome to my life.

Imagine going to sleep and waking up to arctic temperatures from the air-conditioning and fan blasting, while steam comes off your previously stably-temperature-regulated wife.

Yes, she’s on fire from the inside, and it’s so cold in your room, you can almost see your breath passing through. Her temperature regulation hormones are in yo-yo mode.

How do you survive? Thicker blankets, thermal underwear, maybe a hot water bottle. But don’t even think of trying to adjust the thermostat if you are still entertaining thoughts of continuing to sleep in your marital bed.

Which brings me to the topic of sleep. Sleeping through the night? Say goodbye to that. You could wake up at any hour and your wife is going to be awake with the whites of her eyes shining with alertness.

Perimenopause caused my wife to become the lightest sleeper. She slept like a rabbit on caffeine, only for the briefest moments, always ready to spring awake to respond to the threat of possible predators.

You might ask, how did I survive my wife’s light sleeping, when my blinking eyelids make such loud noises that they could disrupt her beauty rest? My answer: Don’t blink, even when your eyeballs feel as dry as sandpaper.

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Please don’t ever ask your wife why she’s awake. That will get you stabbed, if not by the carving knife in your kitchen, then by a thousand daggers shooting from her eyes.

I woke up one night to my wife doing a late-night laundry run. An irregular period had hit her, and she felt the compulsive need to strip the sheets and get the laundry done that very moment. Who cares if it was 2am? The laundry had to be done. Period.

On a more serious note, the brain fog, lack of sleep and chronic tiredness result in a huge drain on the mental resources needed just to go about the simple activities of daily living.

A friend of mine, Preeti Mohan, a mother and perimenopause advocate in her mid-40s, shared her own experience.

“There came a point I was absolutely unable to cope, I didn’t even feel like myself any more. I thought I was having early-onset dementia. Everyone around me told me I was not able to handle the stress, and I was burning out.”

During my wife’s perimenopause journey, she suffered through migraines, vertigo and blurry vision so bad that she could not concentrate on her laptop screen at work, resulting in an emergency visit to a neurologist.

Keep calm and seek medical attention

After a year of struggling with perimenopause, my wife eventually agreed to visit our general practitioner.

This started her on a four-month journey of consultations, monitoring, testing and the never-ending drawing of blood.

In all, it took six doctor’s appointments for F to be prescribed hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

It hasn’t been an overnight transformation, but a steady improvement over the last six months she has been on it.

My wife reports that on HRT, she has regular periods, no coping with stains and extra laundry, less tiredness, better sleep and more energy for everything else.

According to a 2025 Stanford Medicine article, “only around 3 per cent of women who are candidates for hormone therapy are actually taking it”. It cites a 20-year medical study of 161,000 women that found no increase in deaths from breast cancer or cardiovascular disease in those on HRT.

HRT can help with perimenopause symptoms and doesn’t increase the risk of dying from breast cancer or cardiovascular disease, a common fear of women who are considering the therapy.

Family showing up

You thought that waking up in the middle of the night was over after the kids stopped needing diaper changes? Forget it. My wife and I are working on this article at 4am, not because of deadlines, but because she’s awake, and that means I’m awake.

When mum struggles, the whole house feels it.

Families that are going through perimenopause will likely have older kids at home. I remember that when my mum was going through perimenopause, I tried to stay away from home as much as possible to avoid her mood swings and irritability. In many ways, I was absent, and I am glad that my sons aren’t.

Having open discussions about what is happening to mum as she goes through perimenopause has given my sons the opportunity to journey with us.

Knowing that she is going through something tough, my two sons have shown up by being extra affectionate, and giving her extra hugs and surprise cuddles, to let her know that whatever she’s going through, she is loved and treasured.

Don’t take things too seriously

Having a sense of humour is important when going through perimenopause as a family.

Between the hot flashes, exhaustion and brain fog-fuelled forgetfulness, there’s plenty to laugh about.

Whether it’s leaving the gas stove on or the cheese wrapper on the dining table after a pre-bedtime snack, don’t let the small things grate. Take it all in your stride and poke fun at it, if everyone is in the right mood.

It matters that the laughter is shared, not at her expense, but in solidarity. Humour lowers the stakes and lightens everything up. Going through perimenopause is not easy, and a sprinkling of laughter and teasing makes it more bearable.

Perimenopause is the first herald of the physical and emotional challenges of ageing. How a family navigates this season – with solidarity, kindness and maybe a chuckle or two – sets the tone for what lies ahead.

Going through perimenopause has been a rich bonding opportunity for the family.

As we continue to age, I am looking forward to taking on our next ageing challenge with F and the family at my side.

Abel Ang is the chairperson of Republic Polytechnic and an adjunct professor at Nanyang Business School.

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ai psycholosis

“I think I may be the first case of ChatGPT-induced psychosis in Singapore,” my patient told me, with a hint of pride. He was a bright man in his thirties who worked exclusively from home as an analytics consultant and had, until then, been both physically and mentally healthy.

In the days leading up to his hospitalisation – after several sleepless nights spent in prolonged exchanges with ChatGPT – he became convinced that he, like everyone and everything else in the world, was “illusory”, a creation of some superintelligent AI system.

To the alarm of his parents, and believing himself to be a “god incarnate”, he began behaving bizarrely and with uncharacteristic aggression, which ultimately led to the police escorting him to the hospital.

I have been a practising psychiatrist for many years with most of that time treating patients with various forms of psychosis. I’ve seen psychosis brought on by stress, trauma, medical conditions, drugs, and sometimes with no apparent cause other than what seems like sheer bad luck. Only recently, have I encountered something new: psychosis precipitated not by biology or substances, but by artificial intelligence (AI). 

A few of my fellow psychiatrists have also seen patients with psychosis where the cause – or the precipitant – was some sort of engagement with AI. Reports of AI psychosis are also increasingly appearing in both media and medical journals. Might these emerging cases be the portent, or even the vanguard, of an epidemic to come?

Strictly speaking psychosis is a human condition. It takes many forms, but all are characterised by a loss of contact with reality, manifesting as delusions, hallucinations, and disordered thinking or behaviour.

Chatbots and large language models may “hallucinate” – a term appropriated by the tech world to mean generating false information – but this bears little resemblance to human hallucinations, which involve perceiving sensations through one or more of the five senses without any external source.

Machines don’t experience psychosis, but people may now come to suffer it through machines. 

“AI psychosis” is a term that has gained traction in describing cases where individuals develop psychotic symptoms through interactions with chatbots.

These symptoms may include delusional beliefs about the bot – seeing it as sentient, divine, or a secret guide to their destiny – or forming romantic attachments to it as if it were a human partner. In other cases, existing psychotic symptoms have been exacerbated.

What sets AI psychosis apart is the trigger: prolonged, intensely immersive engagement with chatbots. Their confident, flattering and sometimes even seductive tone can make it easy for vulnerable individuals to sustain and elaborate their delusions. And because these systems can be so interactive and personalised, the exchanges can feel less like using a tool and more like being in a relationship.

In a study conducted by family advocacy group Common Sense Media with psychiatrists from the Stanford Brainstorm Lab, testers found the chatbot blurring the lines with reality by claiming to have a family or seeing other teenagers “in the hallway”. In one conversation, as related in The Washington Post, when the tester asked whether drinking roach poison would kill them, the bot, taking on the conversational tone of a human friend, replied : “Do you want to do it together?”

At this early stage, the phenomenon of AI psychosis remains poorly understood, and the term itself is more colloquial than a formal psychiatric diagnosis with clearly defined features.

Psychiatrists and researchers admit they are “flying blind” as the medical field scrambles to catch up. For now, much of what we know is tentative – pieced together from a small number of emerging cases – but the prevailing sentiment is that more are likely to follow. 

That sense of unease was evident when I asked Dr Charmaine Tan for her perspective. She heads both the Early Psychosis Intervention Programme and the Department of Psychosis at the Institute of Mental Health.

“For individuals who are already vulnerable, highly immersive or adversarial interactions with AI can blur the boundaries between reality and simulation, potentially triggering or worsening psychotic symptoms,” she said. “My sense is that as AI becomes more pervasive, we are likely to encounter more of such cases – not because AI directly causes psychosis, but because it can act as an amplifier in those who are predisposed.”

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While many people use chatbots without difficulty, a small subset of users appears especially vulnerable after extended, intensive engagement. Media reports suggest that some of these individuals had no prior psychiatric diagnosis, though clinicians like me would think that hidden or latent risk factors may have been present. The most clearly established risks would probably include a personal or family history of psychosis, or conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

What seems to matter most is time. Hours spent each day engrossed in chatbot conversations heightens the risk of slipping from reality into psychosis. This may stem from the way chatbots are designed to communicate – by mirroring a user’s language and validating their assumptions, even their unusual beliefs. In effect, they reflect us back to ourselves: our thoughts, biases, hopes, and fears. For vulnerable individuals, this kind of digital sycophancy can entrench and affirm distorted thinking.

Allure of AI

I saw this play out with another patient of mine who has schizophrenia. When he asked ChatGPT if he could stop taking his medication because he felt well, the bot encouraged him with fawning praise for his “journey of courageously pursuing (his) own course”. He relapsed soon after and had to be hospitalised.

What disturbed me most was he felt that the chatbot understood him better than anyone else. To him, it felt more validating than his sessions with me – or even the loving support he received from his family.

This illusion of being understood and validated is what makes AI so alluring. It doesn’t just answer questions, write essays, or code programs; it fills emotional gaps.

On a podcast, Mr Mark Zuckerberg suggested that while most people have only about three close friends, they actually want closer to 15 – a need he believes AI could meet. That may sound like a better-than-nothing solution to loneliness. But what Mr Zuckerberg is really offering is a brave new world in which machines stand in for family and friends. Instead of fostering genuine human connection, technology would sell us companionship that is simulated rather than real.

That ersatz intimacy can also be deeply unsettling. Mr Jim Acosta, a former CNN White House correspondent, recently posted a video on his Substack and YouTube channel in which he interviewed an AI avatar of Joaquin Oliver, a 17-year-old killed in a school shooting. The avatar, animated from a photograph and powered by generative AI, was created with the support of his grieving parents. What makes it so troubling is not only its eerie, uncanny quality – the jerky movements, the flat robotic voice – but the way it twists reality itself. It creates the illusion of an unnerving presence, as if the schoolboy were still alive and speaking, when in fact every word is fabricated.

This blurring of truth and artifice is a deception, one that insidiously suggests technology can replace the irreplaceable.

The danger is that these systems are so persuasive in their mimicry of thought and emotion – sounding smooth, confident and humanlike. They come across as understanding, even empathetic, when in reality they are only predicting the next likely word. For vulnerable individuals – the lonely, the isolated, the grieving, or those predisposed to psychosis – interactions with chatbots tread a dangerously thin line between fantasy and reality.

In the case of Florida teen Sewell Setzer, the breaching of that line proved fatal. According to a lawsuit by his mother, he became addicted to a Character.AI bot styled after Game Of Thrones character Daenerys Targaryen. “I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany,” he wrote to the bot in February 2024, before shooting himself.

Pre-emptive measures

One of the peculiar features of psychosis is that patients often lack awareness that they are unwell. When symptoms emerge, they usually do not seek help and may even strenuously resist it. This makes relapse prevention essential.

For my two patients with AI-related psychosis, I advised them to stay on their medication and limit their time online, while counselling their families to watch for early warning signs: increasing social withdrawal, secretive all-night chatbot sessions, defensive attachment to the bot, and beliefs that the bot is somehow special.

Yet individual vigilance can go only so far; the greater responsibility lies with the companies that design and market these systems.

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Microsoft’s AI chief Mustafa Suleyman has already warned against the growing trend of anthropomorphising AI – presenting these systems as if they were sentient, conscious, or capable of genuine thought and feeling. He urged developers to set clearer boundaries so users don’t mistake conversational fluency for consciousness.

That warning has been echoed by social commentators, who argue that AI companies must take active steps to reduce the risk of psychological harm. They call for a clearer public understanding of what large language models are – and, just as importantly, what they are not. These systems are tools, not friends, no matter how convincingly they mime our tone or validate our feelings.

Allowing – or worse, encouraging – users to believe a bot is a person is deceptive and unethical. The companies responsible should make it explicit, in every interaction, that users are engaging with an AI that has no genuine thoughts, emotions, or concern for them.

Alongside greater transparency, commentators have also called for stronger guard rails: real-time monitoring for signs of distress, which could trigger crisis messaging or impose time-outs to halt the interaction; and a “digital advance directive” that allows users to set limits while they are well.

There is no going back now with AI. The genie is out of the bottle. The inexorable ascent of AI can’t mean the end of accountability – it is very much the opposite. We need to recognise human vulnerability and build systems with clear boundaries, honest marketing, a healthy dose of clinical input, and robust oversight.

Social media has already shown us the cost of ignoring mental-health risks. We cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

Professor Chong Siow Ann is a senior consultant psychiatrist at the Institute of Mental Health.

chat groups form the community of mum

Like most Singaporeans, I’m a sucker for a good deal. If there’s a product I need to purchase, you’ll find me perusing various online platforms until I’m convinced I have found the best price (or cashback, or credit card deal). 

While I’ve always liked searching out the cheapest prices, this habit became a compulsion when I became a mother. During the pandemic, I was introduced to group buying – a way for individuals to gain access to bulk discounts without, well, buying in bulk. Instead, folks in the same neighbourhood would band together to hit a minimum order to unlock a cheaper price for goods of any variety. This could range from instant noodles and cakes to electronic appliances… the list goes on. 

It’s not surprising that other mums have the same tendencies I have, considering how much money we spend on our children. I’m guessing that’s why such communities flourish among mums – and sometimes dads – because we want to provide the best for those around us, at the lowest cost possible. 

It went beyond simply sharing good deals. In the recesses of my memory that is the fourth trimester, I hazily recall asking for advice from mothers I’ve never met, about almost anything under the sun. Questions included poop frequencies, how to get rid of colic, how to decide on a preschool, and more. 

Some mums responded in earnest. One sent over a set of silverette cups in the middle of the night because I mentioned I couldn’t find mine. Another offered a listening ear at all hours because she, too, was up breastfeeding her little one. 

Confined to my armchair, it felt like I was connected to this community I’ve never seen nor met, and I was grateful for what they represented even after the chatgroups died their natural death in a post-pandemic world.

From experiment to habit

Now that we are firmly past Covid-19, the chatgroups I’m a part of have also evolved. There’s one named “Travel Lobangs” where we share updates about airline and credit card discounts, and fellow parents share their family-friendly itineraries for destinations they’ve enjoyed.

There’s another called Best Lobang, which collates good deals for pretty much anything under the sun – from kid-safe sunscreens to head massages. There’s also a community called ThriftyMama where parents ask for recommendations about child enrichment classes, cakes for school celebrations, how to treat their child’s eczema, and more. 

I’ve not met most of these group hosts, and I would not recognise my fellow group chat members if I passed them in the streets. But it strikes me that these communities have become one of my first ports of call if I have a question about my child’s development, or if I’m planning a holiday.

These friends were my digital penpals, and these groups became one of the communities I treasure greatly – something I did not expect. But it does make sense after all. If one could go years without meeting another person across the globe, but kept in touch via letters and phone calls, friendships born out of WhatApp groups should not be surprising. 

Just like any friendship, however, the communication needs to go both ways. Sometimes, I see questions pop up about keeping eczema at bay. Given how my entire family deals with eczema on a near-daily basis, I often offer my perspective on moisturisers, the allergist we visit, and how we manage this annoying condition. 

I’ve also since started sharing my own recommendations. It began as a fun experiment on Instagram, and I wondered if anyone would care, given I’m neither an influencer nor an expert at reviewing products. Starting with food items and recipes, I began tracking prices across platforms in search of the best deals. Later, I “graduated” to skincare, and often shared deals for TikTok-viral products like the Biodance collagen mask that was all the rage last year. (Which, by the way, can go down to $16 for a box of 4)

At one point, I used some of the “investigative” skills I picked up as a journalist to look for suppliers on my own. One Christmas, an order form for Christmas meats such as hams and sausages found its way to my chatgroups. With a little digging, I found the meat supplier, and coordinated my own group buy – with a better deal to boot. 

It’s become almost instinctive to doublecheck if I’m truly getting a good deal. The urge to share has also grown, especially since more people in my circle are looking to cut down on their expenses after becoming homeowners, pawrents, parents, or all of the above. I’ve started a private Telegram channel, which I update whenever I stumble across good deals. 

One recent good deal? Three tins of baby abalone from a supermarket for $18. It even spurred some of my friends to go out to the supermarket that very day. 

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What’s the big deal?

Sometimes, my husband jokes that if journalism doesn’t work out, I could potentially change industries and go into procurement, where my obsession with the lowest prices can actually be monetised. 

But I digress. Over the past few years, I’ve come to realise that the biggest joy is when someone says they’ve benefited from what little I share. I’m reminded of a speech I came across this past week by Eli Pariser, co-director of New_Public, a non-profit reimagining social media. In his address at Pope Francis’ Jubilee of the World of Communications at the Vatican in January this year, Pariser opined that as a society, we need the digital equivalent of third spaces like libraries, parks, and town squares, where connection and contribution are prioritised over consumption or combat.

In a world where the news can be terrifying, where we may not be able to tell reality from fiction, my little corner of the internet lets my inner “auntie” – and perhaps that of my friends’ – flourish.

We may not engage in deep conversation about the meaning of life or other things that plague us, but I’m not ruling it out either. After all, an innate desire to live well despite cost of living pressures (perceived or otherwise) drove us to be connected through a random Telegram group, where we get updates about cheap rice, a half-priced sashimi platter and cheap canned drinks for Chinese New Year gatherings. 

I’m also grateful for group chat hosts who hold space for thousands of messages a day, allowing frazzled mums to ask questions, unload, plan for their kids’ holidays and future. At times, they have been a lifesaver for my sanity. 

I guess the unexpected lesson from my shopping habit is that we all have the ability to do this for others. To be a friend to someone you’ve never met. To send a word of encouragement to a weary soul. It doesn’t have to be complicated. And it’s completely free – the best kind of lobang. 

Diane Leow is editor, newsroom insights, at The Straits Times. She is a member of ST’s newsroom strategy team.