Bankruptcy in this city has hit a record level that would have doused the enterprising fervour anywhere else but here.

The reason for this is unemployment, a new serious phenomenon that has reached historic proportions – about 85,000, of which 12,900 are graduates.

Many of these people are moving into business after finding it hard to get back into the job market.

In better days when jobs were plentiful and wages were high, this risk-averse citizenry would have avoided going into business, however feasible.

This is not an exaggeration. A survey showed only 2.1% of adults here were engaged in enterprise where prospect for failure is seven in 10.

Singapore ranks at the bottom end of the world’s entrepreneurial survey, 21st out of 23 countries.

Its individual affluence had come from safe jobs and high pay, which also posed as major obstacles to entrepreneurship, but there are others.

One is the government’s strong hold on business in the country that, according to business circles, sometimes closes out small private concerns.

(In fact, the government often explains it was forced to move into business because Singaporeans were reluctant to do so).

It has promised to move out of companies that have little prospect of a global or regional role, but given the low stock market little divestment has taken place.

A third cause of a lack of business spirit is a traditional practice of giving government scholarship to the brightest students, then bonding them in the civil service and armed forces and paying them some of the highest salaries in the world.

In recent years, the strong economic storm has blown a new trend across this land.

Out of despair - after months of writing job application letters - more Singaporeans are setting up businesses rather than sitting at home doing nothing.

They are joined by professionals who see the prospect of retrenchment in the near future.

To put things into perspective, enterprise is still a slow, gradual stream. The start-ups are mostly small, like pastry shops, tuition agencies or soft toy stalls, not big ventures.

In fact, some are a little more than self-employment or providing a small personal service.

It is, however, a welcoming start for a government that has been exhorting the people to strike out on their own.

Setting up an entrepreneurial society is a major part of the current Remaking Singapore exercise.

It has provided a set of financial incentives, including a S$50mil (M$107mil) fund to help start-ups, relaxed regulations and allowed homes to be registered as offices for quiet, clean businesses.

The downturn is helping would-be entrepreneurs in other ways. One is a reduction of business costs.

Expensive wages and high rents, both obstacles, have come down substantially and are now less forbidding.

In the past five years, office rents have declined by 50%. So have retail and shopping values in some areas, while salaries across the board are sharply down (including starting pay, bonus and allowances) from five years ago.

Recently, the government served notice that restoration of the employers’ Central Provident Fund (CPF) contribution from 16% to 18% would be postponed at least until 2005.

On its part, the Singapore National Employers Federation is running a course to teach the inexperienced how to start and run a business.

Some 2400 people (61% of them unemployed) have attended the course, with six out of 10 intending to start their own company.

Unemployed Singaporeans are less preoccupied with the technicalities of the restructuring exercise than putting food on the table.

That requires finding a new job, failing which moving into some economic activity. This is precisely what many jobless people are doing.

The end of Singapore’s era of full and life-long employment is changing mind-sets.

In a post-industrial age, Singaporeans have been moving their ideas into the marketplace.

During the past 16 months as the economy fell, newspapers here have been full of stories about Singaporeans responding to the old American adage: “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”

Recently, I began noticing a long queue of men and women outside a hairdressing salon in a shopping plaza every time I went there.

A sign proclaims “S$10 (RM21.40) for 10-minute haircut” and I realised why. It provides a cheap, fast and simple service that almost every Singaporean man and woman needs – someone to cut his or her hair. In these hard times, it is invaluable.

Usually, such hairdressing services in a shopping mall are expensive.

Other instances where Singaporeans saw a need and moved to fill it include:

+Juliana Salleh, a 22-year-old polytechnic graduate, set up a business to train Muslim parents how to monitor their children’s online activity, especially surfing pornography sites.

+Carl Wong, 40, set up a training school in Johor to teach people how to fly a microlight (light aircraft) or “powered parachute” in two days.

+Moxhan Yeo, 34, a former engineering trainee in the Armed Forces and insurance salesman, set up a company to help people draw up a will.

+Two former hotel professionals, Angie Koh and Jessamyn Hoh, set up a company to provide door-to-door domestic services with a pool of 40 trained local maids.

I’ve left out the new larger multi-million-dollar ventures to focus on individuals who challenge an old tradition of shunning business risks.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com (e-mail: cnseah2000@ littlespeck.com )

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