SINGAPORE: On paper, Amy Leong did everything right. She studied overseas, earned an MBA, and built more than eight years of professional experience across multiple industries.
She followed the formula that countless young professionals are told will guarantee success.
Yet despite all that, her career came crashing down in a way she never expected, leaving her suddenly unemployed and questioning everything she had worked for.
The incident that changed her career
Speaking to The Independent Singapore, Leong shared the incident she believes marked the turning point in her career.
While juggling evening classes at the National University of Singapore and work at a market-making firm, she mentioned being offered a far better role at a well-known crypto exchange.
“I received a better offer—higher pay, remote work, bonuses, and equity from a prominent crypto exchange—so I resigned,” she explained.
“[But] before leaving, I informed my clients of my departure and new role within the same industry, but a non-competing business model. My manager then accused me of client poaching and hinted at legal action.”
Leong now believes the threat was likely a form of “intimidation,” but at the time, it caused her considerable distress and anxiety.
“Out of fear, I shared the situation with a colleague at my new company and was dismissed almost immediately, without a chance to explain. With no concrete evidence and limited legal recourse, I eventually accepted the outcome.”
The domino effect
Following the fallout, Leong said stability became elusive.
Her first job after the episode, at OKX, lasted six months before she was retrenched during a “team restructuring.”
She then joined Bitget, where she stayed for two months before being let go due to a “mismatch in expectations and a predominantly Chinese-speaking work environment.”
Subsequently, she joined KuCoin for three months, during which her responsibilities were gradually transferred to interns, leaving her feeling undervalued and expendable.
Although she received an offer from MEXC, a leading global cryptocurrency exchange, the offer was later rescinded, reportedly due to unforeseen “headcount and budget constraints.”
Adding insult to injury, Leong endured a gruelling month-long interview process with Tower Research, investing considerable time and energy to meet the entire team and progressing through multiple stages, including final-round human resources interviews, only to receive a rejection notice six weeks later, leaving her demoralised.
Reflecting on these experiences, she questioned whether she should simply attribute her situation to a weakening job market or whether she had effectively been denied a second chance despite years of hard work.
“Do I not deserve a second chance back in the industry or back in the workforce?” she wrote.
Her background before the fall
Prior to the incident, Leong had spent years building her academic and professional foundation.
She completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom and worked across various industries in Singapore.
“My career trajectory is not the typical conventional path in that I started my first job in Singapore as a cabin crew with Scoot for just six months, followed by working in a co-working space as a community manager that lasted only a few months,” she wrote. “I later spent two years at a fintech company, which was later acquired by Ant International.”
She later took a break and pursued an MBA at Canada’s Ivey Business School between 2023 and 2024.
By the time the incident occurred, she had accumulated eight years of work experience—two in Malaysia and six in Singapore.
Where she stands today
As of now, Leong has not secured a new role. She shared that she has been spending much of her time writing a book titled The Millennial Crisis, channelling her experiences into a creative outlet.
In conclusion, Leong said, “I hope you can share my story to help others relate and know that they are really not alone in this, as I felt for a long time.”
Employer’s market
Leong’s experience is not an isolated one but rather a symptom of a larger trend in Singapore’s job market.
Just this month, two more Singaporeans shared their experiences online about how they lost their jobs in a snap of a finger.
In one post, a fresh graduate said she was dismissed less than an hour into her first day at a retail job, allegedly because her Mandarin was not strong enough.
In another, a local employee shared that she was fired just three weeks into a new role because her manager felt she was “too slow”, despite being given only four days of training and little time to adjust.
Separate from these recent cases, there were also dozens of posts circulating last year from Singaporeans who spoke candidly about how difficult it had become to land a job at all.
Across all of these posts, whether they involved instant job loss or long-term unemployment, netizens appeared to agree on one uncomfortable reality: the balance of power has firmly shifted in favour of employers.
A report by PeopleMatters, Asia’s largest and leading community platform of talent professionals, supported this view, pointing out that employers in Singapore are becoming increasingly cautious in their hiring decisions.
In a study titled Singapore Hiring Manager Survey Report 2025–2026, which gathered responses from 375 hiring managers, HR professionals, and final decision-makers across industries, it found that employers remain strict in their hiring, especially towards mid-career candidates, those with career gaps, and people who have been unemployed for more than three months.
Consequently, because of the tough job market, some employees are now clinging to their jobs out of fear, a behaviour often referred to as “job hugging.”
As an example, in November 2025, one marketing employee shared online that although she wanted to leave her toxic job, she felt trapped because the job market felt too unstable and competitive to take the risk.
