Singapore  - A Singapore minister criticized job cuts at the city-state's largest bank amid fears of more lay-offs next year, newspapers reported Saturday.

Lim Swee Say, a minister in the Prime Minister's Office and the secretary general of the 500,000-member National Trades Union Congress, said DBS Bank had not consulted with the DBS Staff Union on other alternatives to cut costs and opted for sudden job cuts.

But the listed and partially state-owned DBS defended its decision, saying the job cuts affected 3.5 per cent of its junior ranks, compared with 16 per cent of its senior management.

The bank also put in place a hiring freeze before it decided on retrenchments.

DBS said it plans to cut 900 jobs and more than half the cuts would come in Singapore and the rest in Hong Kong. It has a work force of 15,000 in 16 countries, including 7,600 in Singapore.

The perception on the ground is that DBS decided on retrenchment as a first resort, Lim was quoted as saying.

Lim stressed that the National Trades Union Congress was not demanding zero retrenchment, given today's gloomy economic environment, but argued alternative options should be explored with the union.

He highlighted options to cutting jobs, such as having a shorter work week, reducing year-end bonuses and retraining excess manpower.

Lim said he expected about 10,000 job cut this year in Singapore with an unemployment rate of below 3 per cent.

But local analysts said job cuts next year could be higher than the 30,000 seen in 1998 during the Asian financial crisis.

The prosperous island state had been depending on foreign workers to fill jobs to support its strong economic growth. Now that the global economic crisis has hit, however, Singapore has revised downward its forecast economic growth for this year, and its economy was expected to contract next year. (dpa)