Employment Relations in Asia: Issues of Plant Layoff and Unemployment

Running head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN ASIA
Employment Relations in Asia
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Notes

EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN ASIA
The issue of plant layoff and unemployment are few of the major issues that are faced by
the modern economy in all the major developed nations. According to the latest report, rate of
employment within Singapore has shirked to 3.5% in the last financial quarter, where there has
been more than 3500 employee layoff cases (SEOW, 2018).
In the given context it is essential to discuss the issues plants closing an employee layoff.
It is also important to focus upon the role of function in the given context. It is important to
mention that after every period of economic and financial crisis situation in the global scenario,
the companies often have to cut down their cost in order to reduce the margin of financial loss.
This is believed to have a direct impact upon the employee turnover rate. The company is
therefore not able to provide proper workplace condition for the employees and has results in
Employee layoff.
Terminating employees has been one of the major area of controversy, in the context of
today's business scenario. In most of the cases it has been seen that the employer do not follow
the ethical guidelines that are needed before terminating an employee (Solove et al., 2015).
Every employee in a private business organisation are hired on contract basis. Hence, the
employer has the legal authority to terminate or end the relationship with an employee once the
official contract period is over. Nevertheless, every employment contract needs to have certain
legal obligations that are implemented by agreement between employer and employee. As per
The Straits Times, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) had been reported to resort to retrenching
130 of its employees in October 2017 as the media giant considered cost cutting and
restructuring of its work processes. The layoffs were a representation of around 3 percent of the
manpower (Seow 2017).

EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN ASIA
The case of Nestle can be given in the context, where the company reached nearly 3% of
the total employees in Singapore. Nearly 1400 staffs in the local area have been affected due to
the management decision of Nestle. This was mainly done to compensate the rapidly changing
business environment in Singapore, where the cost of labour was rising rapidly. The entire
workforce of the company has been affected due to the retrenchment activity. In Order to deal
with the given situation, the management of Nestle in Singapore has arranged personalized
meeting sessions with all the employees, who are being terminated. They have helped in the
personalised counselling session of each terminated employee, which will help them in
rebuilding up their career in other job profile. They have even provided outplacement support to
the terminated employees, which have help them to deal with the immediate after effect of job
loss. The company even directly contacted the Ministry of Manpower in the Government of
Singapore to give them advance notice of terminating employees (Nestle retrenches dozens of
employees in Singapore, 2018).
From the above mentioned case scenario, it is clear that the Nestle Company has strictly
followed all the ethical and legal principles before laying off the Employees. Nevertheless, in
many cases, when a company is shutting down completely there are no forms of advanced notice
that are given to the Employees. This issues is more evident in case of start-ups, which do not
have any base to provide proper assistance for building up the career of the Employees.
In the year 2009, the Seagate Company has closed completely closed and manufacturing
unit in Singapore, thereby resulting in loss of jobs for 4000 Employees. This was done to shift
the manufacturing unit in different location, where the company will be spending additional 80
million dollar for restructuring. Unlike the case of Nestle, Seagate Company is not providing any
form of compensation packages for the terminated employees. This had led to huge controversy