The Phantom Singaporean Worker, another MOM Frankenstein
invention?
Source thread: [discussion]: Encouraging locals to be in service
industry
What measures can be implemented or what can be done to encouraged
locals to be interested in service industry? Besides increasing pay
(which can calculated), what can be done to increase people to take
pride (which is not continued) in service industry?
Also, why is the reality show, Can you Serve? not shown anymore? It
has only 2 seasons.....
Can You Serve Season 2: Episode 1 - YouTube
MOM news/ image source
I say turn the foreign worker levy scheme (FWLS) into a COE bidding
scheme with half of ALL proceeds divided equally
into Singaporean's CPF training account. The money being usable for
studies (or medicare etc if the person is aged/sick).
This is because the low wage foreigner biased FWLS, which imposes
levy on only low paid foreign workers has 2 very bad long term
effects.
Firstly, it give low wage Singaporeans easy money for almost no
work, an embarrassment really, since employers hire these low wage
Singaporeans mainly to just as seat warmers so as to hit the quota
sufficient to employ a required number of foreign workers to get
the job done. Even the low wage foreigners look down on the low
wage Singaporeans due to this biased treatment consequent of stupid
government policy. These poor Singaporeans also remain untrained
since little training is necessary to accomplish their task of
keeping seats warm- indeed, the low wage Singaporean profession has
become that of a phantom worker.
The low wage Singaporeans also find it difficult and discouraging
to get promoted into managerial positions since at the blink of the
eye, having crossed some salary threshold, the employer is now able
to easily replace the Singaporean with a foreign talent either
because the levy payable is little or absent for higher paid
foreigner employees.
The end result of all this is that we have a persistently
increasing pool of low wage workers doing nothing except full/ part
time seat warming- phantom work is now only solution available to
Ministry of Manpower (MOM) Inc.- it now seems.
A universal COE like FWLS could be a large source of funding for
worker training, financial support etc for Singaporeans, however,
in its desperation to build up the finance/ banking sector in
Singapore (banks hire many foreigner con-men who are paid well to
bet against their own clients), alongside the
MOM pen pushers, desperate to justify their purchase of 472 cushy
S$575 chairs 'Designer chairs for MOM staff'
[Mypaper,25Mar2011] have only perpetuated this ballyhoo-fool's
errand- ostensibly to give poorer Singaporeans work to do. Yet all
that they have seem to come up with is the 'prestigious' job of
seat warming!
But while the short term policy of phantom work has certainly
satisfied the government need for statistical publication and
manipulation, what is the government to do now that the average
phantom Singaporean worker has since become the original
laughing stock of all foreigners in Singapore, if not round the
world?
Singaporeans do not need a phantom government to create more
phantom workers out of poorly funded and thus poorly schooled
Singaporeans. Singaporeans want real training for jobs that really
contribute, for jobs that make the world a better place- not jobs
that make them seat warmers for foreign talent to carry on. An
effective scheme like GST, coloured with the profitability from
rationed supply like the COE scheme for cars will certainly pay
good returns for Singaporeans to get properly cared for and
schooled.
To achieve that, the levy waiver for employment
passes (EP) foreigners (especially PMET ones) will have to end, and
the phantom Singaporean worker of today will have to trained to
really impact/ improve the world. Yes many pen-pushers at MOM might
be made redundant, but they must be the original phantom workers
who began this infectious domino of structural unemployment here in
the very first place!
Just as NS for PRs CANNOT be moneytised (see Video: Hri Kumar vs
Ng Eng Hen), neither can the foreign worker
levy requirement for well paid foreigners (EP, SP etc) be
waived.
Yes, I know that there are poor and sickly Singaporeans (/ those
with young kids) who need the assistance of foreign domestic
workers (FDW), but like GST, everything that moves can be taxed.
Just as compensatory GST rebates are given, the more needy can
receive more. A foreigner is a foreigner, just call a spade a
spade- no more illogical permutations please.
In conclusion:
More for a new CPF 'training fund', with equal cash injections to
all Singaporeans; equal levy for all foreigners regardless of
occupation, not just the lowly paid ones and less pen pushers at
MOM please.
Real proper CPF based training fund accounts for upgrading
Singaporean workers, no more phantom/ Frankenstein jobs and
policies please.
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Cartoon: Thin Black man: "I'm Hungry"; Fat White man:"Stop talking
politics":
In return for the "first class political leadership", we pay our
leaders very well:
Tags: Employment, labour, unemployment, MOM, Singapore, structural,
economics, CPF, levy, government, tax, training, contract,
welfare,