For six years Soe Lin sold insurance in Singapore, sending half the $2,700 she earned each month back to Burma to help her parents, whose combined salaries were just a fraction of hers.

But as the global financial crisis hit Singapore last year, insurance sales plummeted and Soe Lin’s employer sacked many of her co-workers. Fearful she could be next, Soe Lin, 36, found what she thought would be a more secure job as a logistics manager for a German electrical components company.