PAP has turned Singapore into a land of foreigners

last SG · 2006-05-04T15:54:57+00:00

I do ehard the govt actually gave scholars to foreign students.

plo30360 SG

Are Sinagporeans really a new race?

T.Ryousuke SG

Its about local born and a PR and not race. They can come and go easily, bring down your wages and take away you rice bowl without serving NS.

oxford mushroom SG

Fact is: locals don't want to do or cannot do the jobs these foreigners are doing.

Domestic maids: Which Singaporean will be willing to accept a job that pays less than $600 (many pay their maids only $300) a month and have to work 12 hours a day without weekends off and no annual leave? They have to sleep in the kitchen or the storeroom and not allowed to have friends or receive phone calls?
If we get rid of these maids and let the local ah sor take over the jobs on a part-time basis, will Singaporean employers accept it? No, they won't pay $500 a month for a part-time maid when they can get a full-time servant for that price. And who's going to make milk for the baby at night?

Construction workers: These physically demanding jobs are not the ones our ah peks can handle. How many of our young unemployed guys are willing to work in these jobs on the pay we give foreign workers? If we pay them the kind of salaries construction workers in the UK command, the developer will raise housing prices.

Road works labourers: Alot of these appear to be Indian or Bangladeshi nationals. If we send them home, can we find young Singaporean men to take over these unglam, low-paid, unskilled jobs? These jobs are too physically taxing for the older unemployed and our youngsters would rather die than be seen working by the road.

Scientists and researchers: There are lots of jobs for these but the vast majority of our unemployed Singaporeans do not have a Masters, much less a PhD, which is the minimum requirement for many of these jobs.

We have to take in so many foreigners because there is a mismatch between jobs and expectations on one hand, and a mismatch between jobs and skills on the other.

SMEs in Singapore can hardly afford to pay the high salaries Singaporeans demand for low- or unskilled jobs and yet remain competitive. I can only hope that the casinos will keep unskilled jobs like cleaners, waiters, hotel staff for Singaporeans. Only the casino can afford to pay above market rates for unskilled jobs.

killstyle SG

casino money is dirty and bloody. u have anything to do with it. ur karma fcuked

claudetnt SG

oxford mushroom:

Fact is: locals don't want to do or cannot do the jobs these foreigners are doing---

Domestic maids---

Construction workers: ---

Road works labourers: ---

Scientists and researchers: ---

unskilled jobs..

Granted some Singaporeans are fussy but the majorities are not about jobs. You will be really surprised with the number of people that had upgraded their skills each time and yet cannot find a decent job cos they simply cannot afford to compete with foreigners. There also many people with masters degrees and Phds who are simply not applying their knowledge to areas of their speciality but forced to downgrade cos of Foreign Talents.

The government made a terrible mistake of opening the Floodgates and Foreign Talents in droves moved in without any conditions. The majority of these so-called Foreign Talents are in fact cheap professionals brought in by companies to beef up their profits. Singaporeans are not going to benefit from these people. In fact they are here to learn from us instead.

The governments biggest blunder is opening and allowing these people from working here without having some criteria like its done in the USA, UK, Australia + Malaysia.

valentinoo SG

PLEASE LAH....THE JOBS PPL TALKING BOUT IS MOSTLY SKILLED..LIKE IN I.T

DEVELOPERS, QA, IT MANAGERS...THESE JOBS R GIVEN TO CHINA, INDIANS, ANG MOHS...

IM NOT SURE ABOUT OTHER LINES...

Dogtor SG

Absolutely correct Oxford Member.

However, necessity is the mother of invention.

If there were limits to low-skilled foreign labour we would have development of newer services, technologies to cope with these jobs.

Maids - laundromats, drop off and devliery, weekly cleaning janitorial services, food delivery services

Who should make milk for baby - Mummy right? - Brea st is best right?

There will always be need for manual labour cos not eveything can be automated or mechanized but surely from a Singaporean context - we ought to be capable of moving in that direction?!?

Say argument in the USA regarding Mexican farm labour.

But the US Dept of Agri and other businesses always have research into labour-saving devices.

In fact the farm machinery revolution made many farm labourers obsolete in the last centruy - cotton picking, wheat harvesting, grape pcikign etc.

I don't buy that we need large numbers of unskilled labour -of course it is nice thoough.

Contrary to popular beliefs - mechanization of many road building methods require skilled and trained operators - which is why so many are white workers (I see that all the time) in the US. Maybe we are not doing it right?!?! Anyone from LTA can comment?

But paying a few hundred dollars and getting long hours of labour in Singapore - for want of a better description is indentured slavery.

But we don't make the world the way it is - those people probably get a fortune when money is remitted to their villages.

oxford mushroom SG

Every profession faces foreign competition, whether it is the IT sector or in medicine. If foreign IT professionals can do the same job as us for a lower price, employers will either employ foreigners or move the entire company to India. Radiologists have lost their jobs to Indian doctors, so why not IT jobs?

Many IT jobs in Europe and in the US have gone to foreigners as well. The only way forward is to move to higher value jobs. There are no jobs in Singapore for diagnostic radiologists, so these doctors have to move into therapeutic radiology or lose their jobs. If there are too many Indian programmers willing and able to take your job for less, you will have to go into R&D or some other higher value services that the foreigner cannot do.

Nobody owes us a living. Why go into a field that is already filled to capacity? With so many people doing IT and media studies, of course it will be difficult to get jobs in these fields. Young people should go into rapidly emerging industries such as nanotechnology, robotics and biotechnology.

oxford mushroom SG

However, necessity is the mother of invention.

If there were limits to low-skilled foreign labour we would have development of newer services, technologies to cope with these jobs.

True, if the government would ban all foreigners working as domestic maids in Singapore, I will start a nanny and part-time maid service immediately, employing unskilled locals who cannot find other jobs.

But do you seriously think Singaporeans will agree to that? People talk about getting rid of foreign workers, but only if it does not inconvenience them and they certainly will not let go of their indentured domestic servants.

Wind6 SG

Sg is changing Laughing

oxford mushroom SG

It has been estimated that between two to three per cent of IT jobs in the US will be lost annually to lower-wage developing countries through offshoring. But ithere are also expanding opportunities for those trained in fields such as software architecture, product design, project management and IT consulting."

See this interesting article as well:

http://www.cognizant.ch/news/articles/items/feb23Time.pdf

sgdiehard SG

You are speaking the realty!! imagine a local maid employed to look after your baby sitting next to you watching Da Chang Jin every evening? or one out of every 3 phone calls in your house is for the maid? there are reasons why we don't see mainland chinese nannies or maids here.

claudetnt SG

Valentinoo:

PLEASE LAH....THE JOBS PPL TALKING BOUT IS MOSTLY SKILLED..LIKE IN I.T DEVELOPERS, QA, IT MANAGERS...THESE JOBS R GIVEN TO CHINA, INDIANS, ANG MOHS... IM NOT SURE ABOUT OTHER LINES

These people are not limited to the areas you have mentioned but have extended to almost all areas except the politicians. I guess we should now get the government to revise our constitution so that these people can government us!

casefan SG

Assuming that we need/require the services/ "talent" of these FTs, they should just be given work permits and not PRs/citizenship status. Otherwise during poor/bad economic periods, they will still be here to nibble at the shrinking pie. Let's face it, they are here for the "peanuts".

casefan SG

Aren't there any FTs in parliament already?

LazerLordz SG

our construction technology is still primitive, not to mention our cleanliness tech.

LazerLordz SG

I fully agree.

Somehow, policies have been crafted to accentutate each race rather than build a common Singaporean identity.

We have to take it upon ourselves.Reject tags of a Chinese nation, lambast those who would call us thus, pressure groups should work actively to spread this common culture, and a set of universal non-partisan ideals that no Party should have a say.

oxford mushroom SG

We need to insist that all future educational opportunities be maximised for Singaporeans, and tax and spend a lot more on it. Singaporeans who can make the manimum standards for training academically or vocationalyl should be trained so long as they apply for it. It typically cost upwards of US$500 000 for advanced training and support.

Singaporeans don't want to pay more taxes. As it is, 40% of Singaporeans do not pay any taxes at all (elderly, housewives, students, handicapped, unemployed, low income). The very rich can move their money and jobs somewhere else and it will be those in the middle that will get squeezed.

Chelzea SG

chio bu u wan lah Laughing

claudetnt SG

Casefan:

Aren't there any FTs in parliament already?

Yeah, You may be right but not quite!

They are all Singaporeans, now.

I have no qualms with FT if they are willingly to be US.

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