Word: expats
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Panjang neighborhood, the 30-year-old Englishman sees a small but steadily growing number of Americans, Australians and Europeans in the fluorescent-lit coffee shop where locals often gather after work around cold pitchers of beer. These foreigners are economic refugees of a sort. Because of the global recession, expat bankers, traders and corporate managers have lost their high-paying jobs with multinational corporations. But instead of returning to their home countries, they've decided to stay in Asia, even though that means moving into cheaper housing and giving up privileges that once set them apart from ordinary Singaporeans. (Read...
...expat ranks swelled and foreigners put down roots, the city's tonier districts filled up. Prices for apartments in Western enclaves like Tanglin and Orchard doubled in value from 2004 to 2008 as buyers snapped them up. Waiting lists for coveted spots at international schools like the Singapore American School or United World College of South East Asia were so long that expats were encouraged to register their children at birth in order to gain admission four or five years later. The cost of joining the Singapore Island Country Club and the American Club soared as transferable memberships were bought...
...Today, as beleaguered investment banks shutter offices and commodity prices and trade flows plunge, Credit Suisse estimates that hundreds of thousands of expat jobs are disappearing from Singapore. Property prices, particularly of high-end homes, are expected to fall some 50% as the recession gathers force...
...people like Rudajev, staying put means learning to live without many plush perks of the expat lifestyle. The first to vanish are the generous housing allowances that many companies use to entice foreign talent overseas. "I'm beginning to see more expats downgrade to smaller and cheaper apartments," says Michael Ciola, an Australian real estate broker who caters to foreigners. The second luxury to be dropped is the private club. The cost of a transferable membership at the Singapore Island Country Club has slumped to $100,000, down nearly a third during the past 18 months, according to the Business...
...Canadian sales executive for a global media company, who requested anonymity because he is negotiating a severance package with his former employer, is another expat who has been living parsimoniously since being laid off. In the boom years, he occupied a spacious sea-view apartment near downtown Singapore that rented for $5,000 a month. Today he occupies more modest digs, paying about $700 a month for an apartment he shares with a friend. "I'm interested in creature comforts like hot water, but I can do without joining a country club or driving a Lamborghini," he says...