With so much doom and gloom around last year, everyone needs a bit of upbeat news to raise their spirits. Last week, Baat Gwaa bumped into a headhunter who offered a glimmer of hope.

In talking about the banking industry in general, he says now that the bonuses have been paid by the big banks, everybody will be talking to each other, trying to suss out where the market is headed.

The way things are going, he expects some pay packages to return to the pre-Lehman levels soon.

Although Baat Gwaa is not in the banking business, good news there means good news for the entire job market.

And the fact that everybody is looking to expand in Asia is definitely a good sign, the headhunter adds.

To be doubly sure, Baat Gwaa phoned up a girlfriend in the human resources business to pick her brain. She is cautiously optimistic, saying that in this day and age, no one can generalise about the overall situation.

She says it all depends on the performances of individual companies. It's like assessing the weather situation; people might experience different weather in different locations, all within the same city.

On the bright side, she says the force of the "big storm" has dissipated, although we still need to keep a watchful eye on storm clouds, just in case.