Economist, Centennial Asia Advisors

Nigel Chiang

Centennial Asia Advisors deliver timely and accurate economic and political analysis to investors, focused on anticipating key turning points that affect the client’s interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Clients include public agencies and central banks, as well as fund managers and investment banks. The company draws strength from its flexibility to tailor products to fit client’s specific interests. It provides detailed macro-economic forecasts, scenario analysis and timely assessments of how specific major economic and political developments may affect a client’s areas of interest. At Centennial Asia Advisors, we tell it like it is. We have no vested interests, no need for a China wall, and no reason to skew our outlook any other way.

Economist

Singapore MAS Decision Preview: Stronger SGD if Central Bank Signals Future Policy Turn

Singapore: On The Cusp Of Turning Points In Fiscal and Monetary Policy

Singapore: Sizable Labour Market Slack Despite Growth Rebound in 2021

Centennial Asia Advisors

At Centennial Asia Advisors, we tell it like it is. We have no vested interests, no need for a China wall, and no reason to skew our outlook any other way. With over 30 years experience covering Asia’s political economy, you can be sure our conclusions and analyses are based on the unadulterated facts. Through years of fine-tuning our research methodologies, we deliver a quality of macroeconomic analysis few other houses can match.

Centennial Asia Advisors is an independent research and advisory firm that works with governments, multilateral institutions, financial firms and leading MNCs.

Economic Policy and Strategic Advisors

Macroeconomics

<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The labour market recovered more slowly in 2Q21, but the pockets of tightness that have emerged within the labour market since the start of 2021 have intensified.</li>
<li>These remain concentrated in a) the faster growing “new economy” sectors where the recovery in demand has been swiftest (and skills mismatches potentially more salient) and b) sectors that are heavily reliant on foreign workers and thus disproportionately affected by ongoing border restrictions,<strong> and do not yet reflect a broad-based recovery in labour demand from the reopening of the economy.</strong>
</li>
<li>Meanwhile, we note that net job losses amongst foreigners worsened materially in the latest quarter, and were seen more widespread across the economy. This, in our view, is indicative of still-heightened uncertainty amongst businesses and points to the existence of excess labour supply in the economy.</li>
<li>Taken together, aggregate labour market slack likely remains sizable which should cap overall wage pressures, offsetting more rapid wage growth in the tighter sectors of the labour market thus dampening upside risks to the near-term outlook for core CPI inflation.</li>
<li>We continue to view April 2022 as the most likely date for the central bank to embark on monetary policy normalisation.</li>
</ul>


The labour market recovered more slowly in 2Q21, but the pockets of tightness that have emerged within the labour market since the start of 2021 have intensified.
These remain concentrated in a) the faster growing “new economy” sectors where the recovery in demand has been swiftest (and skills mismatches potentially more salient) and b) sectors that are heavily reliant on foreign workers and thus disproportionately affected by ongoing border restrictions, and do not yet reflect a broad-based recovery in labour demand from the reopening of the economy.

Meanwhile, we note that net job losses amongst foreigners worsened materially in the latest quarter, and were seen more widespread across the economy. This, in our view, is indicative of still-heightened uncertainty amongst businesses and points to the existence of excess labour supply in the economy.
Taken together, aggregate labour market slack likely remains sizable which should cap overall wage pressures, offsetting more rapid wage growth in the tighter sectors of the labour market thus dampening upside risks to the near-term outlook for core CPI inflation.
We continue to view April 2022 as the most likely date for the central bank to embark on monetary policy normalisation.


Singapore: Taking the Pulse of the Labour Market Recovery