September 02, 2009

Marco Wong lost his job with Citigroup in Singapore in mid-January. During all the turmoil that engulfed the financial world last year, the cutbacks at the U.S. banking giant were neither unique nor surprising. Still, Mr. Wong says, Citigroup’s decision not to renew his contract shortly before it was due to end “came as quite a shock.”

But 20 job applications, four interviews and three and a half months later, Mr. Wong was again gainfully employed — as a financial consultant at IPP Financial Advisors in Hong Kong.Asia has already emerged more forcefully from recession than the United States and Europe, economic reports over the past month have shown. Now, that upturn here is starting — at least tentatively and in certain sectors — to feed into the job market.