Just a couple of days ago I was having a call with an ex-schoolmate who's currently pursuing a bachelor's degree locally and will be graduating this year. We chatted about how gloomy is the economic situation and how it would be difficult for their batch of Class 2020 to find a job.

The job market was already bad even before the Covid-19 crisis, given that I had already witnessed some of my good friends from local unis with stellar results taking more than a year to land a job, with the longest being 17 months.

And it's not like those lucky ones who got a job are well compensated. For instance, one of my friends who is an NTU graduate holding a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics with First Class Honours is getting $2,500 as his starting salary when he was finally offered a job in a Japanese MNC after months of job hunting.