If you not have the necessary qualifications and skills to
compete, clearing tables may be all you can do. The jobs go to the
best man...if you do not measure up to your competitor, you will go
down the food chain. That's a fact of life. You can choose to blind
yourself to reality or work harder to acquire a skill or
qualification that is in demand.
IF I've spent so much giving myself the education
necessary for a respectable occupation, why should I end up
clearing tables in some food court? How can I then, recover the
cost of education I underwent?
If you have the education necessary for a 'respectable'
occupation (who says clearing tables is not respectable?), you
should then pursue the occupation for which you were trained. Of
course, if foreigners with the same education and skills are
prepared to accept a lower salary, you have to lower your
expectations to compete. If you have trained yourself in a sunset
industry or one where many already hold similar qualifications, of
course you will expect fewer jobs and lower salaries. That's why
the disk drive factory operator may have to undergo re-training to
work in a high tech clean room in a wafer fab factory.
Nobody owes you a living. If you choose to study paleontology,
don't complain you cannot find anyone who wants to hire you to
study dinosaurs in Singapore.
The less educated and illiterates are finding it hard to
compete with these PRC FWs because they CANNOT accept the kind of
low salaries that the PRC FWs are taking because of - costs of
living.
PRC FWs also have to deal with costs of living issues. In fact,
they have a bigger problem because they are charged private rates
in government clinics and hospitals. Yet they are willing to come.
They are willing to live in a small crowded room with 3 other
workers, they are willing to sacrifice material luxuries and can
still save enough to send home.
The uneducated and illiterates among Singaporeans will just have to
upgrade, get a qualification or else accept such low salaries. It's
just too bad. That is why the IR may provide a breather for these
people. The casino will be able to employ uneducated and
illiterates for low-level service jobs at higher pay than other
businesses.
There will always be poor people in society, but in Singapore, the
poor have a chance to rise and the key is education. Well-known ST
journalist Chua Mui Hoong has a taxi driver for a father but has
managed to win scholarships and graduate from Cambridge and Havard.
If you are good enough, the system in Singapore allows you to rise
above your lowly origins.
