So what works harder when the haze blows about and blankets Singapore?
The darling for the Singapore economy has been the electronics sector. It’s been expanding for 16 months in a row and the last Electronics Purchasing Managers’ Index EPMI was at 52.9 in September up from 52.6 in August.The electronics Non-oil Domestic Exports NODX was up 107% year-on-year in the same month. These numbers are unheard of in a regular economy in a mature first world economy.
They’re being driven by the demand for AI infrastructure, chips and the sort. The electronics industry makes up 40% of all Singapore manufacturing output and provides jobs to 20% of the available workforce.
That's 70k jobs. It’s important you can bet. And it's looking rosy for now, maybe slightly grey-tinted hazy.
A unique quirk for the electronics industry is that most things they put out are remarkably tiny, chips on boards I mean. And when tiny things are being put together, other tiny things can interfere. Even bad air.
Most semiconductor manufacturing requires ultra pure air. People have to wear PPE type suits to ensure they don’t contaminate environments to keep the quality of output up to scratch.
They measure the bad air in parts per million or billion, and there are ISO standards for Class 1 cleanrooms requiring fewer than 10 particles per cubic meter larger than 0.1 microns.
The bad air is likely causing some worry among the folks in charge of the HVAC, air filtration systems, and production quality control at these companies. Just like how dust accumulates more at home, the same pesky pollutants are probably giving the giant clean air machines a good run for their money. They're working harder because of the haze.
And just like how we clean at home, these expensive industrial filters probably need more wipes and quicker replacement. And that adds cost.
Overall production can be maintained but a higher operating cost which means lower margins. Don’t think anyone is looking at how this impact is gonna affect Q3/Q4 NODX numbers but this goes beyond just people getting sick and how much time/money we spend outside. Maybe The Business Times might want to ask around.
