Telling Singaporeans not to be preoccupied with ever-changing estimates of how many jobs will be lost here because of the downturn, labour chief Lim Swee Say said no agency could predict such numbers with any certainty.

Even the International Labour Organisation cannot do so, said Mr Lim yesterday, noting that its forecasts have a very wide band - anything from 18 million to 51 million jobs lost worldwide.

He was reacting to a DBS Bank forecast earlier this week which predicted that 99,000 jobs could be lost by the end of next year.

Mr Lim was the second minister in as many days to do so.

On Thursday, Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong said that his focus was not on figures, but on launching programmes to cut costs and save jobs, and aid workers in improving their employability.

Yesterday, Mr Lim echoed those points, saying that what mattered more were the actions Singapore would take as a result of the downturn.

'As I said many times before, if we try to cut jobs to save costs, then obviously the numbers will be very high.' he said.

'But if we work very closely together, to cut costs, to save jobs, then I would say that we can hopefully keep the level of losses as low as possible.'

Mr Lim, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, added that even if a worker is retrenched, all is not lost.

He said that there may not be a direct relationship between job losses and the unemployment rate.

Read the full story in today's edition of The Straits Times.