Foreigners raised Singaporean wages
challenged by Jeyaretnam
http://sgforums.com/forums/10/topics/392054
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/02/23/prc-technician-not-keen-to-take-up-singapore-pr-and-plans-to-return-to-china/
February 23, 2010
Despite the desperate attempts of the PAP to entice mainland
Chinese to take up Singapore PR and citizenship to boost the
population of ethnic Chinese in Singapore, it appears that even the
non-professional PRC workers are shunning Singapore.
In a Gallup poll done in July last year among China college
students, their top three immigrations are the United States,
France and South Korea. Singapore was not even featured among the
top five.
Since the floodgates are opened, a large number of mainland
Chinese have flocked to study and work in Singapore with some of
them settling here eventually, but with China becoming more
developed and prosperous, the number may decrease with time.
Sichuan Daily News interviewed a PRC lady from the province who
worked as a technician in Singapore. She had obtained “NITEC”
certification here which enables her to take up Singapore PR. (read
article here)
However, she said she is not interested to stay on in Singapore
and planned to return back to her hometown in China after picking
up some technical knowledge and skills here.
Singapore’s strongman Lee Kuan Yew boasted that the government
is very “selective” about who it gives PRs and citizenships to
though it is strange that Singapore needs to import technicians as
“foreign talents” from China.
In other countries, only highly qualified professionals or rich
businessmen are given PRs, but in Singapore, it is not unusual to
see technicians, cleaners, construction workers and even
prostitutes obtaining PR relatively easily.
According to figures from the Home Affairs Ministry, every two
out of three PR applicants are successful. There were more than
70,000 PRs in 2008 alone.
There are some schemes which allow foreigners from certain
places like Hong Kong and Taiwan to obtain Singapore PR
without even setting foot here.
Being a first world country, Singapore should be able to attract
talented immigrants with relative ease, but they seem to prefer
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other democratic states though
they have much tighter restriction on immigration.
The PAP should seriously reflect on why even the mainland
Chinese are not keen to settle down in
Singapore permanently instead of throwing precious
taxpayers’ monies into the sea to make them feel “welcomed”
here.
www.heraldsun.com.au
Average Australian weekly wage rises nearly six per cent in
2009
From: AAP
February 25, 2010 12:48PM
THE average weekly wage in Australia is now $1226.70,
after rising by 5.9 per cent in the year to November. <!--
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The quarterly seasonally-adjusted pace of average weekly
ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) rose two per cent in the three
months to November, Australian Bureau of Statistics data released
today showed.
This was a sharp acceleration on the 0.9 per cent quarterly
growth recorded in the three months to August, lifting the annual
rate well above the Reserve Bank of Australia's perceived "line in
the sand" at 4.5 per cent.
Still, the composition of the AWOTE series tends to make it
volatile, which is why the RBA prefers to use the wage price index
- released yesterday - as one of its main guides to wages
growth.
That index showed growth of just 0.6 per cent in the three
months to December with the annual rate slipping to 2.9 per cent, a
nine-year low.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/average-australian-weekly-wage-rises-nearly-six-per-cent-in-2009/story-e6frf7ko-1225834303069
