Foreign workers
Foreign workers in Singapore parlance are people who come from around Southeast Asia and South Asia to do blue collar and pink collar jobs in the city state.
In a number of Asian countries including Hong Kong and Singapore; Filipino and Indonesian workers came to care for old people at home, look after children and conduct household tasks.
This group of foreign workers freed up middle class married women in Singapore and other countries to participate more to their economy, capitalising on their education and ability to earn more in fast-growing economies. They had higher levels of workforce participation than their female counterparts in Japan and South Korea.
The Philippines relies almost five-fold more on remittances for its GDP than similar countries like Indonesia.
What’s less reflected upon is the social upheaval and challenges that these foreign workers face in their new homes. They are in a different culture, away from friends and family as a support network. They have tremendous pressure to remit as much money as possible home.
They only have each other to rely upon. This skate team is just one of the activities that foreign workers do. From informal gatherings with friends to sophisticated beauty pageants, volleyball and basketball leagues. More Singapore related content can be found here.
Beauty
China’s beauty market is a sight for sore eyes | FT – The brand keeps prices of its products, from face powders to creams, closer to those of premium international brands, in line with L’Oréal’s Lancôme and Shiseido’s Nars. The rise of a domestic premium brand points to a significant shift in mainland shoppers’ buying habits as well as highlighting improvements in the quality of domestic products
Business
China
Impatient for tech breakthroughs, the Communist Party is pushing aside private initiatives | Merics – the government is trying to pick winners and backfill the funding gap left in the VC industry which has declined over 40%.
China’s long view on quantum tech has the US and EU playing catch-up | Merics – China sees quantum technology as pivotal in global science and technology (S&T) competition and has stepped up government spending on scientific and industrial development to about USD 15 billion.
Consumer behaviour
Paper People | Yun Sheng | Granta – virtual dating simulators and virtual love. Japan leads where the aging world is likely to follow
2024 Year in Review – Pornhub Insights – young people (gen-Z) make the highest traffic.
Gen Alpha report: Teens see Starbucks as the new Venmo – Fast Company – equivalent to rounds in a bar.
From like to love: understanding why consumers fall in love with some products | Kearney
Culture
Y3K: Futuristic fashion trend sweeps China | Jing Daily – Inspired by AI, VR, and the metaverse, and propelled by K-pop idols and Korean brands, Y3K is rapidly gaining popularity among Gen Z. – very William Gibson ‘Burning Chrome’ era
Economics
Diverging demographic destinies: Cars and the middle class | WARC – According to Pew, the American middle class has shrunk significantly in the last few decades. The top 20% of earners now take more than 50% of aggregate income because theirs has grown faster. 88% of Americans have less than $2000 in their checking account and 50% have less than $500 in savings. The average cost of a new car in 1984 was $6000 and the average household income was $27k. Today average household income is $80k [Fed] but averages conceal the widened gap between maxima and minima: the median income per person is around $35k [Census]. The average price of a new car is almost $50k, which is surprising enough that CNN wrote an article about it. They explain that “much of the reason Americans are paying nearly $50k for a car is that automakers decided to go all-in on expensive cars. The more they charge for a car, the more money they make off it.”
Whereas forty years ago an average new car cost about a fifth of an average annual salary, a new car is now prohibitively expensive for most. That’s why Americans have a record $1.6 trillion of outstanding car debt and delinquencies are rising.
What the Bubble Got Right | Paul Graham
2025 AI & Semiconductor Outlook | Fabricated Knowledge – early indications for an economic downturn?
Energy
Is China’s “peak coal” just spouting emissions? | Too Simple, Sometimes Naive
Hong Kong
Asia’s Walled City: The Erosion of Transparency in Hong Kong | International Republican Institute – interesting report, particularly some of the knock-on effects for sectors such as public affairs professionals, financial analysts and being able to do due diligence on businesses.
Japan
FirstFT: Nissan and Honda hold talks about a merger
Biden’s Move to Block US Steel Deal Is No Way to Treat Japan – Bloomberg – In the executive order preventing the deal on spurious national security grounds, staffers for President Joe Biden appeared to accidentally copy-and-paste the title of a previous presidential order — one ordering a Chinese crypto mining company to vacate property near an Air Force base. The left the Nippon Steel directive entitled: “Regarding the acquisition of certain real property of Cheyenne leads by MineOne Cloud Computing Investment.”
Luxury
Interesting research from two sources that don’t quite square with each other. Walpole’s The State of London Luxury 2024 report came out and painted a rosy picture about the ultra high end aspect of the London property market. Meanwhile over at the FT, Why London’s property market is stagnating points at the same end of the market as being moribund in nature.
United States Luxury Fine Jewelry Market Expected to Reach USD 24,374.3 Million by 2034, Driven by Sustainability and Personalization Trends | Future Market Insights. – The luxury fine jewelry market in the United States is poised for steady growth, with the market size expected to reach USD 17,353.6 million in 2024. The market is projected to continue expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.5%, reaching USD 24,374.3 million by 2034
Marketing
Ipsos In Talks To Acquire Kantar Media | Media Post Agency Daily
Full article: Infusing Affective Computing Models into Advertising Research on Emotions | Journal of Advertising Volume 53, 2024 – Issue 5: Computational Advertising Research Methodology – academic study to look at the kind of research techniques that the likes of System 1, iPSOS and Kantar use in assessing advertising
Ageism in advertising: AI and layoffs exacerbate the issue | Ad Age – baked in (but largely incorrect) perceptions about ‘not being able to use AI’ and reducing headcount is crippling the existing DEI dumpster fire in the advertising industry.
Media
Jellyfish Launches Share of Model™ Platform, First-to-Market Solution to Track How LLMs Perceive Brands, Products & Services – Marketing Communication News – Share of Model™ Platform – a first-of-its-kind solution that enables companies to analyze how different Large Language Models (LLMs) perceive their brands, products and services. Critically, the new platform can identify whether or not brands are optimizing their digital presence enough to prompt coveted recommendations from Gen AI models such as ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Meta’s Llama, when people tap into them for guidance.
Retailing
Foot Locker hit by slower spending and NIKE ‘softness’ | WARC | The Feed
How WhatsApp for business changed the world – Rest of World
Security
Romania blames Russia for election meddling | FT
How Chinese Hackers Graduated From Clumsy Corporate Thieves to Military Weapons – WSJ
How macOS has become more private – The Eclectic Light Company
Technology
Intel on the Brink of Death – SemiAnalysis & The Death of Intel: When Boards Fail – by Doug O’Laughlin. This interview with former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, back when he was the project manager for the Intel 386 processor. In retrospect, Gelsinger’s return as CEO could be seen as an Intel C-suite cargo cult hoping for 386-like success again.
Telecoms
U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid cyberattack | NBC News
Web-of-no-web
Top secret lab develops atomic clock using quantum technology – GOV.UK
