If the Singaporean lifestyle was that attractive, people won't
be leaving. Lets face it, I believe the major pull factor here for
foreigners is money and relative lower cost of living. If you are
gonna tax them heavily, they might as well stay in their own
country or move to our competitors with lower tax.
on the surface, to a tourist coming from a 3rd word, the pore
is nice looking with the modernities.
whole country done a good job developing the 1 small
city.
But the Quality of Life is so poor, they have to have a city
wide search and hunt for the happy person.
after a few days, any tourist would have finished touring the
entire city including sentosa and after a few months, they
would start to look at JB and Thailand and Bali.
so, its obvious that FTs enjoy the ease to come here and take a
job. To make things easier for them to work here, they simply
apply for PR. but how many willing to give up their own
citizenship?
They enjoy the relatively low tax and they dont buy
expensive things like a car or pay for ERP or COE or parking
or petrol or maintenance or fines EVEN though their pay of
5k -20k can easily afford that.
they intend to save and then return and retire back home and
become rich men and women.
at the end of the day, similarly qualified locals are the
ones who gets to compete with them. FTs do not require CPF
and lease HDB for 99 years or own a car for the family.
their retirement need not be here where medical costs
will be higher than ever. so, they do not need as high a
salary.
its easy quote globalisation as reason for hiring FTs.
Its a national development issue to ensure locals welfare is
addressed. that is why talents are paid to do such kinds of
jobs.