Thank you for your consolation

[FA+TA]

Though I'm not in IT line, I'm able to see what inside a call centre for an airline. More than 90% of them are from one country and same colour. I can't comprehend if there is a quota, why majority are not Singaporean?

Are they busy? No, they are not. They can chit chat and having breaks anytime they like.

Where is the control?

Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle is missing in our country's policies. We plan our policies, do (implement) but no thorough check and hence ineffective Act.

I attended Chan YC's seminar in 2-days seminar in 2005. He said that Singapore need to increase population to a critical mass in order to has a sustainable internal consumption. I do agree to his view but I never expect that, suddenly, 1 or 2 years later till last year, floodgate open so wide that Tom & Harry also become Singapore PR. There's no Quality control.

What's pain me more is that in past 10 years, my block has 2-3 cases of people committed suicide by jumping from high levels. I knew one of them who was a manager but lost his job and become a taxi driver. His wife is doing well but I guessed he couldn't swallow his pride and took his life.

Another image still imprint in my mind is how a little bit plump man with black hair, after losing his job, degenerate into a skinny man with all white hair. His face crumbled and he talked to himself. A few years later, he died. Due to depression, a man can simply deteriorate and collapse. How many unemployed Singaporeans get depressed and become mental patients. Mental illness is difficult to cure than normal illness.

Job loss does not happen in Manufacturing but in outsource industries like IT, Logistics and etc.

Our text book tells us that Singapore has no other resouces and Human is the only valuable resources and we have to treasure it. What the country preach and treat their citizens is 2 totally different things. How can you get us to believe in you?

I talked to a taxi driver and he grumbled to me that he was formally a Supervisor working for a company which provide engineering services to oil industry. His salary is a fixed $3300 and no overtime. He has to fletch foreign workers to Jurong Island from their hostel and send them to hostel after work, 7 days a week. He had to work 12 hours per day. His Philipino foreign workers earn more than him.

He told me an Ang Mo told him one word that describes Singaporean perfectly i.e. PATHETIC.

I'm pro-government but a lot of incidents have changed me completely. In the past, I'll argue with foreigners if they said anything wrong about us. Now, I don't. WHO'S CARE?

煮豆燃豆萁 豆在釜中泣。
本是狮城生 却成次公民。

[karlmarx]

there is a reason for the government in granting PR and citizenship in large quantity to the so-called 'low-skilled' foreigners (hawkers, hairstylists, masseuses, beautician, etc).

the first is that singapore needs people to do the 'dirty' jobs that locals shun. malaysians used to make up a large proportion of such labour. now even the malaysians shun these jobs. dishing out work permits to these people is not ideal because there will always be a need for such labour; you do not want to have a shortage of inexpensive labour for unskilled jobs.

so why not give the bangladeshis PRs and citizenships, we always have a need for builders, don't we? the bigger part of the reason for why we have imported who we have imported, is to strengthen diplomatic ties with china and india. this is important for singapore's future economic growth. for instance, is it a coincidence that the foreign banks our government has a stake in (scb, citi, ubs), are providing us employment in the wealth management industry?

second, of the roughly 2mio foreigners in singapore, if instead of having unskilled foreigners, the government only imported skilled foreigners (all 2mio of them), there will be huge economic and social imbalances. you will be competing (for jobs, housing, cars, and perhaps even spouses) with an even larger number of people. the prices of everything will be even more expensive than it is now because there are even more affluent people. the gini coefficient will explode. and the suicide rate for locals will be even higher.

the truth is the government has run out of ideas for growth. so it is unfortunate we have people in power who know no better, and resort to policies that are highly detrimental to its populace. seeing how the elections has just passed, and that nobody probably wants to die of depression, there remains only one way to deal with this. we have to empower ourselves (or at least believe in ourselves) to be courageous in taking on the competition. don't doubt your abilities, don't give yourself excuses. pick up your baton and continue running. take up a regular sport; everybody feels great about themselves after a good sweat. if there's one thing singapore's education system has not taught us, is how to deal with failure.

to all middle-agers going through mid-life crisis and singaporeans marginalised by pap policies, stop lying on your back. stop thinking about why Sh** happens, stand up and fight back!

[Thriftville]

Great analysis Karl! Globalization will make outsourcing easier. So if the labour force is not competitive, the jobs will go somewhere sooner or later.
I agree that there's a certain group of people, who need help from the gov. But those who are still able to improve, should do so.

Not trying to be sarcastic, but I've seen too many people around me willing to spend hours to curse, and then don't wanna do anything to value-add their own skills. It's human nature that our first response is to blame, but after letting out the frustration, try do something to fix the issue, while its still not too late.

[Stocker]

The so-called FT policy is to bring in more cheap foreigners from many sectors to depress the wages.
Engineers from PRC/Pinoy/India/Malaysia ask for lower salary so S'poreans are pirced out of the market. This is to make Spore more "competitive" to investors.

[sgd]

I don't think singapore workers are not competitive I have my own theory.

For years and years EDB did a great job to bring in mnc here provide jobs for singaporeans.

Then strangely in the 90's the government suddenly encouraged companies to go global, seek your fortune overseas they said and they even invested in suzhou to show all the critics in the world that it was safe to go into the water and invest in communist china.

Once these companies tasted cheap labor as china and india opened it's doors they began to compare with singapore workers simple as that. So now to prevent the exodus of companies leaving SG they have no choice but to keep bringing in cheap labor here. Do you think is the case that labor force is not competitive or is it the case that mnc corporations are spoilt silly and want good labor to be cheap.

there's no control here anymore and I don't think there's floodgates regulating the flow too, it's now free flow but if think now is bad, wait till you see the FT from greece, italy spain ireland all the debt hit countries that are going to come here to escape the crushing taxes back in their countries.

[Temperament]

Put it simply, i don't believe in the PAPAYA many moons ago. As far as i can see nothing they do really benefit the people except themselves. Take the latest COMFORT DELGRO Taxi prices increase, do you really think it going to improve the life of the people(including Taxi's drivers)? i don't think so.

Why? Mark my words, sooner rather than later, Comfort Delgro will increase taxi's rental which they do not have to announce to the public except the taxi drivers. So who really benefited in the end? Your guess is as good as mine. Actually Comfort Delgro is NTUC. NTUC is connected to PAPAYA one way or another. So who benefitted? The Elites or the people?

[Thriftville]

Feel sorry for those taxi drivers who need to struggle to survive... I hope better policy can be done to help them

Lower salary = price competitiveness. If FT demand lower salary and yet produce same result, good for the company.
When companies compete for project, whoever can bid cheap and provide good service wins. A hard truth to accept.

[yeokiwi]

Feel sorry for those taxi drivers who need to struggle to survive... I hope better policy can be done to help them

Lower salary = price competitiveness. If FT demand lower salary and yet produce same result, good for the company.
When companies compete for project, whoever can bid cheap and provide good service wins. A hard truth to accept.

In general, the income from taxi driving is still decent enough. It is not exceptional such that they can live a luxury life but , it is more than enough to make ends meet.
Don't believe?? U can read from the horse's mouth.
http://taxiuncle.activeboard.com/

[Thriftville]

Wow! Surprise to see cabbies also got forum... didn't expect the uncles to be IT savvy. thanks for sharing!

[hyom]

I felt it is not very good to educate kids to go for the hottest industry or go for where the money is. I think a person finds what he wants to do in life, is more important than to earn all the money of the world.

Perhaps you got the wrong message from my post that my son does not want to be an engineer because I told him so. My son has his own eyes and ears and is old enough to have a mind of his own. While it is sad, I cannot blame him for not wanting to be an engineer or even having a low opinion of engineers because he can see with his own eyes that his father, a former engineer, has been staying home all day for consecutive days and not bringing home the bacon. Hopefully, future events will change his mind. For all the praises that I have heaped on engineers and scientists using historical examples to my son, money talks in the end.

I don't think it is good parenting advice to children to find a calling wherever the money is. I do not think it is wise for young people to simply find a job where the money is without conducting a thorough self-analysis of their own strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes.

On the other hand, I also do not think it is wise for young people to simply follow their passion without having a sense of reality. They may be highly inspired after watching some speeches from Steve Jobs or Warren Buffett who strongly advocate following your passion. The reality is that not all passion can become profitable. Some passion just remain as hobbies that cost lots of money. Some passion can even be undesirable if carried too far. All of us like girls. How easy is it to make this passion(or lust) profitable? Become a pimp? Or more likely, end up getting a divorce which is one of the greatest sins for people who wants to become rich. (http://help-your-money.blogspot.com/2010...serve.html)

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I was actually driving at the same point as you did- globally, electronics isn't a sunset industry but I suspect in our local context it is or at least, certain segments like the manufacturing/assembling. I can imagine that there's a whole flow from designing to production of a electronic product but I'm not sure which part of the process Singapore-based companies would have a competitive advantage in.

Would be great if you could share your thoughts on this.

This is a good question. Unfortunately, I don't know where Singapore companies can have a competitive advantage in Electronics because whatever we can do, others can do as well. To make matters worse, Singapore did not do a good job at controlling its land costs. Besides the rental cost, this also adds to the labor cost because when workers pay a bomb for a roof over their heads, they have to demand higher salaries. Otherwise, how to repay the 30-year mortgage which can be about a decade's worth of their salaries? The interest payments become necessary, unavoidable expenses and this sets a minimum for local wages. The government should do their part at controlling the cost of living and the cost of doing business besides telling the people to tighten their belts and become cheaper, better, faster. Some improvement in terms of listening to the people has been made by the government after the election.

Meanwhile, a vicious cycle has begun. When big MNCs are moving out and smaller ones are dying, the surviving companies suffer a disadvantage because of the poorer support they get locally. When there is a strong cluster of electronics firms around, Singaporean electronics companies get better support in terms of R&D, procurement, logistics. This support is waning and with the survivors already struggling now, it is getting even harder for our electronics companies to compete globally. Chances are that more will die later. My own analysis tells me that this trend is not cyclical. Differing opinions will be most welcome.

Sorry, I do not have a good answer to your question. Perhaps a more enlightened forummer can help.