SINGAPORE — Channel News Asia (CNA) published an interview on Sunday (18 Dec 2022) with two Meta staff who came to Singapore on Employment Passes (EP) recently, only to be retrenched last month in November as part of Meta’s global cut on staffing.
Meta is the parent company that owns Facebook.
The two depressed foreigners, one from India and another from China, told CNA how desperate they were to find a job so they could stay on in Singapore before their short-term visit passes expired.
Both interviewees, Ms Susmita Sahu and the PRC national who wanted to be known by her initials EZ, said they were hired as “technical sourcers” in Meta’s Human Resource department.
EZ came in June, while Ms Susmita came in July. Both said they were offered annual salaries in the range of S$100,000. Ms Susmita said that their department was the worst hit in Singapore, with about 120 staff retrenched.
However, even though both had worked in the same Meta’s Human Resource department for about half a year, they appear to give a different account of the workload in their department.
EZ did not have much to do
One of the things that surprised the PRC national when she joined the company was that the Human Resource department was already heavily staffed.
“That’s kind of like a sign right? We had so many people but actually the workload is not that much,” she said, adding that she and her team-mates did not have much to do.
In October, when another hiring freeze was announced, she recalled that they had to start a project just so as to give themselves something to do.
Work environment difficult and pressuring for Susmita
In Ms Susmita’s case, she appeared to have a lot of work to do, contrary to what the PRC said about their department having “so many people but actually the workload is not that much”.
Ms Susmita said, “The pressure and the work environment were difficult, really challenging from the time we joined.”
“The work environment was really pressurising, we had really high targets – incredibly high targets to deliver. When we delivered 100 per cent it was not enough, we always had to prove ourselves more – to 120, 130 per cent of the targets,” she said.
Her teammates also worked very hard, she added, thinking that their performances would be considered in the event of layoffs. But even those who performed extremely well were retrenched, Ms Susmita lamented.
“(But) it was a great place to learn, I could have easily stayed for five, seven years if I was not laid off.”
Ms Susmita felt her experience in Singapore was surreal.
“I still feel like I hope this is all a dream and I wake up to a normal day where I can go to office to my work. Even if it was like, some days, 12 hours of work,” she added.
“It was better than what it is right now, the stress of finding a job … more work is better than no work.”
According to her LinkedIn, Ms Susmita obtained her Bachelor’s Degree (BBA) from D.A.V. School of Business Management and an MBA (HR and marketing) from Biju Patnaik Institute of Information Technology and Management (BIITM), which is affiliated to Biju Patnaik University of Technology (Odisha).
After their EPs were cancelled, the Manpower Ministry generously decided to give them 90 more days to stay in Singapore under the Short-Term Visit Pass (STVP), so as to help them look for a job to continue working in Singapore. Presumably, they would be looking for HR or recruitment jobs.
Both said they are willing to take a pay cut of 30 to 40 per cent and have been desperately applying for jobs.
They will, of course, have to return home if they can’t secure one in the remaining 90 days.
