The arrogant tone of the ACTING Minister of Manpower took a more
conciliatory note AFTER the two Academicians apologized for their
error in interpreting MOMs data that were posted incompletely
on their website.
It seems that data are withheld from the Ministrys website, as
certain data are considered sensitive and secret.
Can we speculate as to the reason why this was done ?.
Now that the "other data" has been released, are we getting the
full facts of the situation, considering that basic data and
statistics are considered by the Government to be SENSITIVE and
should be kept SECRET ?
If one is to look at the employment situation in Singapore, and
breaking it into the various specific components, we can clearly
see where the heavy reliance of Foreign Talent will lie.
We can identify the various sectors into two distinct White and
Blue Collar sectors; and with each sector further broken into
Managerial, Supervisory, and Worker levels, and then again into the
various sectors of the Economy such as Finance, Retail, Service,
Maintenance, Public Works, Manufacturing Food, Ship Building and
Repair, Consumer Products, Electrical and Electronics.
There is certainly a heavy reliance on Foreign Talent in the Money
World - especially with Singapores attempt to be one of the
financial hubs in the Money World.
With the merging of banks over the last three years, structural
change have occurred that resulted in many retrenched Singaporean
Workers both Managerial, Supervisors, and Workers.
How many of these have been reemployed by new Financial
Institutions that have been licensed to set up new offices in
Singapore over the same three years of the Singapore Banking System
being restructured ?
How many of these new Financial Institutions that set up shops
bring along their own in-house talents from their original home
office ?
With our Singapore Government abhorring the reliance of
legislations to protect Singapore Citizens rights to a job, it is
more then likely that these new Financial Institutions - that set
up shop in Singapore - would have kept their own financial trading
skills and knowledge In-house.
The Manufacturing and Shipbuilding-Repair industries have seen
Singaporeans manning managerial and supervisory positions, and a
large dependence of lower wage foreign workers from Malaysia,
Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladeshi, and PR China.
Over the last twenty years, the Singapore Government has pushed our
wages higher, with each annual wage increment review, forcing
industries and services to abandon work procedures that are heavily
dependent on low wage-workers.
The policy was to encourage the introduction of higher value added
products and work processes, so as to bring our worker into a
higher plane of skill.
While this policy is laudable, Singapore do not enjoy some features
that are commonly found in the other industrial nations of Asia,
Europe and USA; and that is population size that gives their home
industries a large domestic market to keep the gears moving and to
remain responsible to its own homeland.
Even with the big brand names such as Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson,
Ford, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Volvo, and
others these industrial nations have also seen their own leading
manufacturers move overseas to lower cost centers of
production.
While most of these brand names have moved to lower cost centers of
production, they still employ a sizeable number of workers in their
home operations; and also employ their own nationals to look after
the interests of these national companies that moved
overseas.
While the Singapore Government legislate against Singapore
Companies from being too dependent on Foreign Workers insisting
that there should be at least five Singaporean Workers before any
number more than five foreign workers will be approved there is
no legislations that will require any Foreign Investors to employ a
proportionate numbers of locals at a pre-determined ratio of
foreign talents.
This legislation weighs against Singapore Companies as it hits at
their dependence on low skilled labor, while the same legislations
do not apply to ANY companies who need Foreign Talent above a
certain wage level.
We can see many foreign talents in low wage jobs that do not pay
enough for the high Swiss Standard of Living that the Government
has created for us with its accompanying high Cost of
Living.
At the same time, we can also see many foreigners with real
Talent in jobs that are in the higher wage levels which the
Singapore Government WELCOMES, as the Government believe that One
such Foreign Talent can create ten jobs for Singaporeans.
Sadly, it is not clear what kind of jobs have been created with the
employment of such high value Foreign Talent.
