Dear Mr Goh,
Please publish my story under the name “Chua S” if you find it appropriate for your site.
I am a 35-year-old male home-grown Singapore Chinese citizen. I graduated in 2000 from NUS Business School and harboured high hope of a good life afterwards.
However, when I started work in an operations position, my pay was only SGD 2100 – way below the general market rate of SGD 2500 for fresh grads.
At that time, job competition and wage depression were prevalent and I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity as it was better that I have a job than nothing at all.
My situation may sound unbelievable to you but it is true – since then, I have been stucked in a prolonged underemployment and unemployment cycle of which I can see no light for the past ten years!
As of Jan 2011, I have been out of proper employment for 8 months after completing a contract operations job. Contractual work arrangement means that I will be working for a while and stay unemployed for another long period before I managed to secure another contractual work arrangement again.
Its not ideal for work security and there is no way that I can even think of starting a family with such unstable job arrangement prevalent in our current work environment.
Relentless marketing of so-called foreign talent by the PAP has reinforced the view that foreigners are better even though they may not be and their services are not actually cheap either.
I have heard of foreigners earning $5000 when I could barely earn above $2000 and I hailed from the prestigious world-classed National University of Singapore! Something must be wrong somewhere…
Local home-grown HR managers have told me that foreigners were being hired simply because these people were foreigners. Everyone liked the idea of a diverse workplace until they were badly affected by their adverse work ethics and knowledge.
When I was hired for contract positions, the supervisors were always anxious I would disappear suddenly and they had to find replacement. People of my profile are expected to cut and run after 3 months.
This was despite the fact that I have always completed my contract term. They just couldn’t commit to a more permanent work arrangement with me.
From my observation, organizations generally preferred females (including foreign females) for the positions I applied for. These positions include administration, accounting, banking, finance, operations (office-based), human resources, retail services and sales support.
Organizations only employed males for engineering, sales and technical positions. I did not have the relevant engineering and technical background.
I have also noticed that more sales positions are now occupied by females leaving me wondering what kind of jobs are available for guys!
The only sales area where males still maintain the majority count was those of a self-employed nature.
I have also stopped applying to insurance companies because they were only interested in me becoming an insurance agent.
Some people have suggested that I go into teaching or tuition. The idea of exhorting young students to study hard for a brighter future is totally repulsive as I am the clear example of a big failure from our renowned meritocratic educational system. We are encouraged to study hard, get good grades and graduate but in the end, we all struggled to get stable decent jobs and this unpleasant situation is not only unique to me… many of my peers are caught in the same tragic cycle too.
What good is it if you have all the A’s in your report card but you could not find ready employment long after you have graduated?
Furthermore, the Ministry of Education is likely to reject me just like any other civil service or related positions that I have previously applied for.
As I felt that my NUS educational background has been either irrelevant or a liability, I have been careful in taking up any upgrading courses. In 2003, I was even rejected for a position as I was still taking a part-time course!
Other people in my situation would have long emigrated or become self-employed. I need not describe my frustrations further as this has been repeated by many people here.
I hope you are able to assist me. Please keep up the good work on your website. Thanks.
Regds,
Chua S
NB: We have assigned a career coach to assist the writer – Gilbert.
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The wage of a fresh polytechnic IT diploma holder working for NCS on a one year contract basis in 2011/2012 is $1850. S’pore economy has showed signs of recovery in late 2004 early 2005. The salary of a IT staff shouldn’t be so low to S$1,200 per month. How come your first job was only S$1,200 per month? What position & in which industry? MNC or SME?
15 year ago should be 1997, with earning S$2k should be able to support a wife & child cos shares & property price plunge. Inflation is low. It is not too surprising that someone from the banking & financial sector was able to own a few properties cos banking & financial sector pays well. That is why banking & financial courses & jobs are hot. The starting pay of a fresh NUS/NTU bachelor in engineering working for the bank doing market research is $4000.
High ROI, that is also the reason why many youngsters opt for jobs in the entertainment industry. After becoming popular models, movie stars, singers, magicians or hosts, they can live in the high live.
In S’pore, it is always good to have a degree, especially degrees from NUS/NTU even if you are not cream of the crop. Having a degree at most times really gives you better start in your career. Your age should be around early 30s and you have NUS degree in Computing with quite a few years of sales experience. You are in your prime years. The rest of us here are not fortunate. We too used to be young & ambitious but things just didn’t work out well for us.
Agreed that whatever we pursue must be relevant to what the market needs cos this is the theory of market demand & supply. Trying to take control our destiny under circumstances which we have direct influence on, i.e. our mindset and immediate actions is a not bad thing. But once again we are ordinary humans, we can only estimate, guess, pray & hope for the best to come. Life is not always what you reap is what you sow.
Yes, our government doesn’t do a fantastic job at times and kept on complaining & take no actions to tackle the problems is also not too good. So I think we should kept on complaining & took some actions to tackle the problems & teach the government to do fantastic jobs.
Pls remember to vote well & correctly in the next 2016 GE.
Shenton Way is overrun by Caucasians, Filipinos, Indian nationals and China nationals. Singaporeans are truly a dying breed there.