S'pore needs immigrants to survive: MM
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Originally posted by speakup-:
And no Charlize, if that were really the case Singapore would have died long ago. Its about creating a value-added workforce, working towards being multi-talented and well-versed into multiple disciplines. What you are trying to say is that to a certain extend each tier of employees throughout the world is homogenous which is not actually true. By value-adding your skills, you may be able to perform jobs across many disciplines which is an asset to any organisation in difficult times as you are helping them cut costs. For now the main low wage competition exists at the very end of the job spectrum i.e. unskilled labour. By upgrading and retraining you alienate yourself from that job sector and can command better jobs further up the ladder.
Upgrading your skills is a good thing - it adds value.
The problem now is no matter how much value you add to your skills, there is a foreigner who has the same set of skills that will work for a lower wage than what you are prepared to accept.
If you lower your expectations, that foreign worker will lower her wage to undercut you because of the massive differential in cost of living between singapore and her home country ( China, India, other SEA countries)
Ultimately, there is a point where you cannot lower your wage expectations because you have to think about daily cost of living, your bills, of paying your home mortgage loan, your kids education, supporting your old parents and your own retirement needs.
The foreigner on the other hand, works at a level just below the Singaporean's cutoff point. The money they can save from working in singapore for say 10-20 years, is likely enough for their retirement needs back home.
Look at the amount of work permits, S passes, Entrepeneur passes, that 6-month-to-find-a-job pass and goodness knows what other passes, that the government is giving out. This is excluding PRships that is also increasing every year. It hits ALL levels of the economy, not just the low skilled worker sector.
We need immigrants, yes. But the current policies of increasing population at all costs are not sustainable and will only lead to more social and economic problems in the future. The pie in Singapore is only that big due to its size. And the piece of the pie everybody is getting in the future, will only get smaller.
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The problem now is no matter how much value you add to your skills, there is a foreigner who has the same set of skills that will work for a lower wage than what you are prepared to accept.
If you lower your expectations, that foreign worker will lower her wage to undercut you because of the massive differential in cost of living between singapore and her home country ( China, India, other SEA countries)
Somehow I feel the idea of having an immigrant readily available to match the ability of every person who is multi-talented a bit exaggerated. Firstly why these immigrants come here to snatch low end jobs is because they are unskilled. By upgrading you become a skilled worker which differentiates you from them and thats what lands you the job. Expats, those who are skilled only come in small numbers. Naturally these people are attracted here in search of higher pay and better job prospects just as our own talents have (top MAS economist leaves Singapore for a post in Middle East as economic development board advisor). Whiile i dont have empirical evidence to back the fact that upgrading skills can possibly offer you better jobs that are less affected by the influx of foreigners in terms of wage competitiveness, i hope this line of reasoning is convincing. Simply put, the problem our workers face in terms of lowering wages is for jobs like construction worker, road sweepers and stuff which we are observing that increasingly, are jobs taken up by foreigners. So actually our own people are not entangled in this downwardspiral of wages.
Furthermore, the idea of the 'wage war' is unrealistic as every person has their own reservation wage. Unlike price wars among producers, the undercutting in terms of wages does not occur that dramatically simply because there is a minimum subsistence wage that they must earn. Everyone wishes to earn the maximum that they can get so to assume that people would willing cut their wage to get the job is a bit unrealistic. What is true however is that with a larger supply of cheap labour, by offering a lower wage on the part of the employer they can still find several takers for the job which is what accounts for the phenomena of falling wages. However when these employers want to look for better workers, (i.e. the more skilled or multi-talented ones) the scrutinization increases and so does the wage so as to attract these better workers. This is true of globalisation and the effect of labour flows around the word today that the wages of skilled workers do go up. The only sad truth is that in many places cheap labour has forced the wages of unskilled workers down, that is what we are trying to prevent through retraining and such.
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so bottomline; is there any company out there in SG that want to hire a 50-60 years old IT system administrator that had went thru' IT training course, even if he asks $1000/mth for his salary? or would they prefer a fresh FT, young and vibrant, with equal level or knowledge? the choice is obvious.
discrimination is prevalent among the employers. no doubts about it.
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The implementation of minimum wage law will increase the unemployment rate of the economy. Picture this, if Singapore were to implement minimum wage law, firms would try to cut costs by hiring less workers, in fact you would be the victim if firms chose to sack u. This would lead to lesser productions as cost of productions would increase, thereby affecting the whole economy and its real GDP. This also discourages foreign investors to setup companies here. Singapore govt didnt want that to happen. That's why they are emphasizing on the upgrading of skills for us to remain hired and valued by the firms. If you are good at something, you will be rewarded. So instead of minimum wage law, efficiency wage is better. Therefore, Singapore does not restrict companies how much they payout. But the bonuses of civil servants are questionable and the reasons that the govt gave for increasing their wages are unjustifiable to some. Foreign workers will help our economy in the long run, but i think there are too many useless foreigners around. They are a bunch of black horses.
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So many immigrants here, my friends and relatives here are all laughing... so many people from all lands around here came and settle here...filling up mrt trains and buses...hmm...seems like it doesn't belong to citizens here anymore..
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Foreign workers have been recruited here to replace the jobs of citizens here, wonder if the citizens who got retrenched in so many companies will get angry about this, coz if they dont get retrenched, there are no job vancancies for foreign workers. But the bulk of foreign workers are mostly non-investors which means that they are here not to put in money but mostly to earn and get monies out of this country....and in the end...what will happen...there will be a huge drainage of monies out of the land.
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This problem of having not enough population all started when they implemented the "Stop at 2" policy a few decades back.
Now they are struggling to reverse the effects of that policy by introducing these liberal immigration policies.
You can just imagine 10, 20 years from now when the population gets too big and then they will have a bigger problem on their hands.
By that time, you want to start kicking citizens out of the over populated country?
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Food for thought:
Which problem is easier to solve?
Under population or over population?
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personally I think singapore needs to tighten the immigration. seems so easy to gain PR nowadays like nobody's business. There's no moe value in our pink IC. Whats there to be proud of being a singaporean? Paying high installments just to buy a car and hdb flat? ratrace urself to death? being a female in sg is very ho mia (better than japan and all those third countries), but being a guy in sg wat's so different? I think its more stressful to for a male to live in sg.
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Originally posted by charlize:
This problem of having not enough population all started when they implemented the "Stop at 2" policy a few decades back.
Now they are struggling to reverse the effects of that policy by introducing these liberal immigration policies.
You can just imagine 10, 20 years from now when the population gets too big and then they will have a bigger problem on their hands.
By that time, you want to start kicking citizens out of the over populated country?
They are already starting to plant ideas into you to send your aged parents to nursing homes in JB.
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Originally posted by speakup-:
Somehow I feel the idea of having an immigrant readily available to match the ability of every person who is multi-talented a bit exaggerated. Firstly why these immigrants come here to snatch low end jobs is because they are unskilled. By upgrading you become a skilled worker which differentiates you from them and thats what lands you the job. Expats, those who are skilled only come in small numbers. Naturally these people are attracted here in search of higher pay and better job prospects just as our own talents have (top MAS economist leaves Singapore for a post in Middle East as economic development board advisor). Whiile i dont have empirical evidence to back the fact that upgrading skills can possibly offer you better jobs that are less affected by the influx of foreigners in terms of wage competitiveness, i hope this line of reasoning is convincing. Simply put, the problem our workers face in terms of lowering wages is for jobs like construction worker, road sweepers and stuff which we are observing that increasingly, are jobs taken up by foreigners. So actually our own people are not entangled in this downwardspiral of wages.
Furthermore, the idea of the 'wage war' is unrealistic as every person has their own reservation wage. Unlike price wars among producers, the undercutting in terms of wages does not occur thatut dramatically simply because there is a minimum subsistence wage that they must earn. Everyone wishes to earn the maximum that they can get so to assume that people would willing cut their wage to get the job is a bit unrealistic. What is true however is that with a larger supply of cheap labour, by offering a lower wage on the part of the employer they can still find several takers for the job which is what accounts for the phenomena of falling wages. However when these employers want to look for better workers, (i.e. the more skilled or multi-talented ones) the scrutinization increases and so does the wage so as to attract these better workers. This is true of globalisation and the effect of labour flows around the word today that the wages of skilled workers do go up. The only sad truth is that in many places cheap labour has forced the wages of unskilled workers down, that is what we are trying to prevent through retraining and such.
The immigrants here can be segregated into 3 types: unskilled (foreign worker) immigrants, skilled ( foreign talent / foreign 'talent' ) immigrants and expats.These immigrants compete with locals for jobs. As the locals upgrade their skills / learn new skills to avoid competition from the unskilled immigrants, they will then face competition from the skilled immigrants. It's not like once you have upgraded your skills, you get the job, it doesn't work that way. Either way, the locals are screwed and they have to undercut their wages to compete with these immigrants to get the job.
Whatever skills you have, there will always be a foreigner that has the same skills and can undercut your salary by accepting lower wages. So what if the hired foreigner doesn't fit into the company, the company could always try hiring another equally skilled and lesser paid foreigner since they are in abundance.
unskilled immigrants ( foreign worker ): You will find them driving public transports ( SMRT /SBS buses ), building houses and buildings, doing ship repair, working as operators in manufacturing plants, working as maids and attending to you at your friendly neighbourhood hawker centres, foodcourts, restuarants and retail outlets.
skilled immigrants ( foreign talent / foreign 'talent' ): You will find them mostly in the technical jobs of IT industry, engineering industry and manufacturing industry. Most of them are technically trained, have knowledge of IT subjects and engineering subjects, are experienced in their own field and able to articulate themselves well. The local NITEC, diploma and degree graduates regardless of whether they are experienced or not are competing against these batch of skilled immigrants.
Some of the skilled immigrants ( foreign talent ) really know what they are doing and are able to design and build new products, software etc and some of them ( foreign 'talent' ) are actually foreign workers in disguise.
There is another type of skilled immigrants that aren't technically trained and they are found in the sports and media industry ( eg. actors and actresses )
Expats: You will find them at occupying managerial positions or higher posts at MNCs, finance centres, banks etc. They are the smallest in numbers compared to the other 2 types of immigrants
These 3 types immigrants are here for money only, they will not settle down in the country. Once they have earned enough, they will move back to their own country to live like a king or if there are a better prospects elsewhere eg. employments in US, australia, canada, etc, they will pack their bags and move there.
A friend of mine who once worked at a manufacturing plant told me this. During the good times, when his company is making money, the skilled immigrants ( foreign talent / foreign 'talent' ) outnumbered the locals in the company and are growing in numbers every year. But when his company show signs of losses, the skilled immigrants ( foreign talent / foreign 'talent' ) flocked to other profitable companies and suddenly there are no skilled immigrants left in his company.
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Hi starexcalibur i really appreciate your post its really quite enlightening for me. I especially found the last 2 paragrahs really thought provoking. I think its true that afterall everyone is in it for the money and that is way we have to try to preserve our social fabric at large. We welcome foreigners and we allow them into our community but we do have to bear in mind that we, the true Singaporeans are afterall what makes up this country and it is important to keep the core of our population together.
Nonetheless Im still not thoroughly convinced that the problem of foreigners being able to fight with our own people at almost every level of skilled and unskilled labour is really that prevalent. I mean unemployment rates havent been shooting up in the last few years and people's main complaints have been in the lower tiers of employment. Perhaps you can refer me to some articles so I can get a clearer picture on these aspects.
As the locals upgrade their skills / learn new skills to avoid competition from the unskilled immigrants, they will then face competition from the skilled immigrants. It's not like once you have upgraded your skills, you get the job, it doesn't work that way. Either way, the locals are screwed and they have to undercut their wages to compete with these immigrants to get the job.
I agree with you that getting more 'skilled' is not an instant solution. But what I do believe is that getting 'multi-skilled' can solve the problem. I may be wrong to assume this, but the skilled labour from the neighbouring ASEAN countries where the chief source of foreigners are coming are more 'mono-skilled'. Perhaps it is because their country's development and education has just taken flight. Hence I actually hold strongly to the idea that being more versed in more than one skill may actually increase one's employability.
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Oh yes and to Ah Chia. Im sorry that my reading is not as wide as yours. Perhaps you can share what kind of enlightening stuff you refer to for material? I really wish I could be as enlightened and acute in judgement as you someday. My 2 magazines are but my consistent feed of information and articles together with the straits times. Sure these 3 publications may not be sufficient but at least Im relatively in touch with current affairs and get to see world issues through the perspective of polished journalists.
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My 2 magazines are but my consistent feed of information and articles together with the straits times. Sure these 3 publications may not be sufficient but at least Im relatively in touch with current affairs and get to see world issues through the perspective of polished journalists.
You only read newsweek, the economist and States Times for current affairs?
This means that you know completely NOTHING whatsoever about world politics.
You don't have a clue about what is going on in international politics.
You are really new bird in world of politics.
You only read those three pro-western junk, very hard to gain knowledge about world affairs.
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Please answer my question and avoid criticizing my choice of material. It is junk to you because you are not pro-western, which does nothing to undermine the quality of work in the writings. Suit yourself if you wanna be different and full of cynicism but these junk contain empirical data and research to back their stands. So when you criticize do back it up with something concrete or else i do not see how much better are your views than these so called junk in your opinion. And please enlighten me on what kind of valuable material you feed yourself with in order to gain knowledge about world affairs.
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It's pro-western biased propaganda junk.
You can't see it now because your knowledge is at a low level, not high level.
Explain everything will take too long and walls of text.
You can increase your knowledge bit by bit by going to below sites for info, before going into the details or larger picture:
http://www.antiwar.com
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
http://www.globalresearch.ca
http://www.counterpunch.org
http://www.democracynow.org
http://www.atimes.comhttp://therealnews.com
http://www.spacewar.com
http://news.google.com
http://wiredispatch.com
http://www.alternet.orghttp://www.energybulletin.net
http://www.fpif.org
http://www.flonnet.comhttp://en.rian.ru
http://english.pravda.ru
http://www.russiatoday.ruhttp://en.fondsk.ru
http://exiledonline.com
http://www.spiegel.de/international
http://mondediplo.comhttp://english.people.com.cn
http://www.chinaview.cn
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion
http://www.china.org.cn/china/node_1033982.htmhttp://allafrica.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.plenglish.com
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/
http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/principalingles.htm
http://www.coha.org
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.nethttp://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm
http://www.killinghope.org
http://www.agenceglobal.com/author.asp?type=2&id=245
http://www.michaelparenti.org
http://howardzinn.org/default
http://petras.lahaine.org
http://www.johnpilger.com
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk
http://www.robert-fisk.com/home_page.htm
http://www.slate.com/?id=3944&cp=117404
http://www.gregpalast.com
http://www.johnperkins.org
http://www.georgegalloway.com
http://www.alternet.org/authors/5591
http://www.tomdispatch.com
http://www.tariqali.org
http://www.michael-hudson.com
http://www.ericmargolis.com
http://markcurtis.info
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_kinzer/
left wing:
http://www.monthlyreview.org
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org
http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag
http://www.wsws.org
http://www.socialistworker.org
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk
http://www.isreview.org
http://www.greenleft.org.au
http://www.newleftreview.org
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Originally posted by charlize:
You can learn all the new sklls you want.
But there will still be a foreigner equally skilled and willing to work for a lower wage than you.
Really.
well, aren't we competing in globalised world, I dun mind it if i can be productive than he/she does, and i dun mind he/she becoming my boss if he/she can prove herself to be.Globalisation begin when internet bloomed and world start to interconnect with each other, that was in the late 90s and early 2000s when i was still in Secondary sch. And till now, peoples are still not enlighted to understand that you are not competing with the local market anymore, but a international market. Sure it is tough, but on the other hands, it helped us to progress, fight for our living and improve our strength of surviving.
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Originally posted by Ah Chia:
It's pro-western biased propaganda junk.
You can't see it now because your knowledge is at a low level, not high level.
Explain everything will take too long and walls of text.
You can increase your knowledge bit by bit by going to below sites for info, before going into the details or larger picture:
http://www.antiwar.com
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
http://www.globalresearch.ca
http://www.counterpunch.org
http://www.democracynow.org
http://www.atimes.comhttp://therealnews.com
http://www.spacewar.com
http://news.google.com
http://wiredispatch.com
http://www.alternet.orghttp://www.energybulletin.net
http://www.fpif.org
http://www.flonnet.comhttp://en.rian.ru
http://english.pravda.ru
http://www.russiatoday.ruhttp://en.fondsk.ru
http://exiledonline.com
http://www.spiegel.de/international
http://mondediplo.comhttp://english.people.com.cn
http://www.chinaview.cn
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion
http://www.china.org.cn/china/node_1033982.htmhttp://allafrica.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.plenglish.com
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/
http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/principalingles.htm
http://www.coha.org
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.nethttp://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm
http://www.killinghope.org
http://www.agenceglobal.com/author.asp?type=2&id=245
http://www.michaelparenti.org
http://howardzinn.org/default
http://petras.lahaine.org
http://www.johnpilger.com
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk
http://www.robert-fisk.com/home_page.htm
http://www.slate.com/?id=3944&cp=117404
http://www.gregpalast.com
http://www.johnperkins.org
http://www.georgegalloway.com
http://www.alternet.org/authors/5591
http://www.tomdispatch.com
http://www.tariqali.org
http://www.michael-hudson.com
http://www.ericmargolis.com
http://markcurtis.info
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_kinzer/
left wing:
http://www.monthlyreview.org
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org
http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag
http://www.wsws.org
http://www.socialistworker.org
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk
http://www.isreview.org
http://www.greenleft.org.au
http://www.newleftreview.org
Uncle!, so these all the links that makes what you are now...hmmm..we better stay far far away from it. -
Originally posted by angel7030:
Uncle!, so these all the links that makes what you are now...hmmm..we better stay far far away from it.
Stay really far. Makes him look like a commie. -
u can be very productive but in the end,
there is still someone equally or more productive and yet cheaper to hire...
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just to clarify, Uncle, u mean the trick is old or the dog is old?? Please lah no more link, i am getting brain washed by all your links..
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Originally posted by angel7030:
just to clarify, Uncle, u mean the trick is old or the dog is old?? Please lah no more link, i am getting brain washed by all your links..
OMG You really clicked on all the links?.....
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Originally posted by GHoST_18:
u can be very productive but in the end,
there is still someone equally or more productive and yet cheaper to hire...
So be it, the govt intervention will help you out, it is not that singaporeans now got no jobs, just that there is a structural unemployment going on due to the economic crisis.A talent person from another country actually do not wish to come here, he/she will prefer his/her own country, however, because of his/her country poor system to provide them a decent job, they left their home in search for better pasture. And here in Singapore, being multi cultural, peaceful and harmony, they choosed here to be part of their life if not forever.
The issue is that most singaporeans pick on them to be a job snatcher and that the govt immigration policy is a total disadvantage to them. But I see it as an opportunity for me to use them to the advantage of Singaporeans. There are many foreign business and firms here with foreign talents that created many jobs for singaporeans.
The fact that i got PRC and thai gals here earning money for us is a gift, you simply cannot find singaporeans doing it. If you cannot make in life, dun blame here and there, ask yourself, what fxxk had you been doing all these years?? To me, all Singaporeans should be a boss by now
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Wow thats a lot of links Ah Chia I sure salute you. So please tell me how those that handful of websites prove a better read than mainstream publications. Does their value lie in the fact that they concur with you and publish less mainstream views?
Angel7030 has pointed out that presence of foreign workers may actually benefit us which is something I agree with. One of the expects is that competition breeds higher work quality and high work productivity. Under constant competition we are forced to better ourselves as workers and employees to increase our employability.
Also angel correctly pointed out that in the age of globalisation it is no longer about competition within our domestic markets but internation markets. With globalisation markets are able to transcend physical boundaries to sell their products anywhere and employ anyone anywhere to do a job if its more cost effective. Whether the foreigners are actually here for us to physically observe them 'stealing' our jobs or not, the inherent threat of them to replace us should already be a motivation for us to improve our employability.