As the recent Labour day festivities ended and life returns back to normal for most Singaporeans after the super-long weekend, I was left pondering about the labour-day speech made by our Prime Minister on foreign workers.
The fact that he spent a bulk of his time speaking about this issue meant that it has grabbed his attention for a while and why not as many Singaporeans are also talking about it in coffeeshops, HDB void decks and the market places.
Unfortunately, most Singaporeans did not share the sanguine sentiments on foreign workers like he did.
Transitioning has conducted a poll on our blog in March and out of the 1010 respondents, 873 or 86.44% have indicated that they are uncomfortable with the idea of mass-importing foreigners to solve our low birth rate problem.
Its still a mystery why our government continues its intense persistance to bring in more foreigners when clearly the voters have shown their displeasure recently and hammered the ruling party with more than 100,000 swing votes in GE 2011 - bringing it’s majority votes down to 60.1% and the lowest since PAP seized power.
More strangely, in contrast to the usual goverment’s precise thorough planning when carrying out any long-term fiscal policy that affects the country immensely, the intake of foreigners was done flippantly, casually and even haphazardly.
For example, we all knew that there isn’t enough housing to house the 200,000 over new foreigners that flooded the country in the last five years which has incidentally caused the housing price index to skyrocketted alot recently.
Our infrastructure also suffered under the severe strain of new immigrants and though the new second circle line was only opened last year, it was not sufficient to bear with the intense new load of human traffic and even suffered it’s first massive break-down last month.
It’s not the government’s policy to plan such a massive movement without proper consultation, feedback and logistical support sparking rumours that the crucial decision could be made by a small group at the top and more frighteningly by the Prime Minister himself alone.
He has decided on planting two integrated resorts almost all on his own when the parliament was splitted in the middle five years ago and it is highly possible that the massive foreign influx could solely be his call also.
The different conflicting calls for acceptance of new immigrants also confused the nation alot - trying to beef up our population to six million so that our GDP will remain buoyant, a drastic lack of foreign talents that will enable our country to be like New York and London and finally the classic pertinent reason of resolving the low birth rate.
Introduction
The plan to bring in hundreds of thousands of foreigners within a short period of time seemed to be unscheduled, sudden and even sinister as the country was not forewarned of this new influx before hand until Singaporeans started to see jams in MRT trains and shopping malls.
By then, hundreds of thousands of third world country dwellers have already landed on our shore with new work contracts - right under our noses and the government did not bothered to even inform the whole country about this massive migration plan and we were simply told to readily accept them into our fold.
More ominously, later on, MOM officers realised that in their haste to approve work permits for foreigners, many applicants sent in bogus educational certificates and illuminating work experiences painted on glowing resumes were all but a sham.
By then, it was too late as the work permit holders have already started working in our island – some who could be murderers, traffickers and robbers living next door to us but managed to get out and started a new life proivded by our country.
The lack of employment protection for local PMETs has led to employers hiring cheaper well educated foreigners with third world degrees – effectively replacing many of our own mid-ranged managers with first-world local degrees in the process.
Singapore’s well educated PMETs gradually found themselves reporting to managers from third world countries and interviews are now normally conducted by foreigners.
The annihiliation has slowly begun and shows no signs of relenting as the Singaporean worker found himself to be the minority worker in most local and foreign companies nowadays.
Despite the mayhew the government has caused to the country, strangely all this while, there is not even a whimper that was uttered in protest against the government…all seems normal in this money-driven dog-eat-dog-world society.
Moreover, if I can remember vividly, our government did not bring the important issue of mass importation of foreigners into the country for discussion at all on it’s many feedback platforms - not once. It simply acted on it’s own and then started to ask the population to accept them when they are already living next door to us.
Massive influx of foreigners
For the record, as of June 2010, our workforce consists of 1,712,600 Singaporeans (“citizens”), 334,700 permanent residents (“PRs”) and 1,088,600 foreigners.
Now, PRs and foreigners make up 45% of our workforce. In June 2001, they only formed 36% of our workforce.
The relentless messages sent out by the government to accept foreigners because of our low birth rate has being so incessant recently that I feel it may have gone overboard.
Sometimes, I don’t even want to read such articles anymore – call it the inability to face the harsh truth if you may but it makes my blood boils when the messsage becomes too hard-hitting and regular.
Low birth rate excuse for government to bring in immigrants?
Our total fertility rate (TFR) has hovered at the critical rate of 1.2 when we need at least 2.1 to effectively replace ourselves and the government has taken up this issue and using it against the people.
Yet others have blamed the government for not doing enough to help Singaporeans give birth whereas many have written to the forum pages recently saying that our tough work culture here has all but deter many couples from wanting to give birth to one or any children at all.
Yes, foreigners have being coming in by the thousands since 2000 and eventually culminating into an avalanche few years prior to GE 2011.
One main bugbear of the foreign influx is that there is no transparency on how immigrants are being selected to be permanent residents (PR). Friends have told me how foodcoourt stall assistant can be PR and one has even spoke to a PR cleaning tiolets in a food centre.
Though such stories are unsubstantiated, we clearly need a comprehensive transparent system telling us how foreign talents are selected to be PRs as eventually they will move on to be citizens.
Lack of transparency in our immigration system
In Australia, there is a thorough point-system set up to identify skilled talents for immigration purposes. Applicants must clear 65 minimum points before they are eligible to apply for work visa in Australia.
Age, English proficiency, skills and educational qualifications are main criterion for such point-system migration processing.
On the other hand, the Singaporeans system lacks a transparent comprehensive way of gauging whether the immigrant has skills that are unique to local Singaporeans. We do not want too many semi-skilled professionals
Moreover, there is the sick feeling that the recent foreigner-first policy here may not be solely for the birth rate reason as most developed countries face the same issue especially in Europe and Australia whereby their low birth rate similarly could never replace the ageing population but they have never resorted to mass immigration like we do.
They rely on a mixture of baby goodies, flexible conducive work arrangement and skilled immigration to solve their low birth rate problem. Elderly citizens are encouraged to take on employment way after their retirement age and this partially helps stem the need for the hiring of foreign workers like we do.
At 40 years old, Singaporeans already feel the pressure of not being able to find re-employment easily when they are being retrenched and as the population ages, our government must really penalises companies that discriminates against aged workers who can still continue to contribute to the workforce.
I travelled quite often via Qantas airlines to visit my family in Sydney and I never failed to always marvel at the older workers who served me at the airplanes. They are steady, experienced and their age is never an issue when it comes to workability.
Back in the Singapore Airlines planes, I could hardly see a stewardess or steward who is aged above 40 years old unless he is the chief steward. This is a shame and should never happen at all.
If we can persuade our employers to continue hire our matured workers way past their retirement age, I am sure that we do not really need so many foreign workers in our midst.
The ease in employing younger and cheaper foreign workers with the slew of work permits available has to stop immediately.
Unless the government starts to introduce stiff measures to protect locals in the workforce, foreigners will continue to be viewed as “enemies” by the locals resulting in severe social disharmony.
Carrots to become citizens
Many netizens have also commented that foreigners are enticed with all sorts of carrots to be citizens here so that they will be in time to vote for the ruling party in five years’ time. So far, this is unsubstantiated.
It seems a reasonable excuse however as the ruling party has being suffering from a power erosion since two elections ago and any more vote slide will result in a power base shift – adverse to it’s strong monopolistic hold on to power all this while.
Many political analysts have commented that a 1/4 opposition 3/4 ruling party parliament may be the in-thing for the near future.
Even strongman Lee Kuan Yew has predicted that no political party could hold on power for too long and PAP would one day lose control of the country.
Yet, the new citizens’ votes could provide a source of hope to the ruling party to reverse this imminent trend and if this could be achieved with some persuasive sugar-coating, why not?
Moreover, our weak social movement and lame citizenry outcry have allowed the government to carry out all kinds of unreasonable immigration polices without having to face any public resistance. If such policies are carried out in other parts of the world, the population will rise up in protest and even vote out the government within one election.
Australia and Canada have tried to bring in large numbers of emigrants during the early 2000s to adverse reaction from it’s own citizens. More seriously, the foreign citizens could not integrate well with the locals there causing all sorts of social mayhew in the process.
How Australia tackles its’ low birth rate
At March 2010 the estimated population for Australia was 22.27 million people. At 30 June 2009 around one quarter of the estimated resident population comprised of people born overseas. At the 2006 Census 45 per cent of Australian residents were either born overseas or have at least one parent born overseas.
In Australia, whole towns have been taken over by immigrants and some converted citizens could not even speak a word of English. They also brought in their own culture to the country and do not seem to integrate well with the locals over there.
That is why now for new immigrants, they have to take a compulsory English language test to ascertain that they have a minimum proficiency before they are being accepted into the country.
Things however came to a standstill two years ago when many Indians were stabbed – some fatally – causing thousands of them to leave the country.
The anti-foreigner sentiments got so bad that it caused the strong Howard government to lose power in the election eight years ago resulting in the current labour government seizing power.
However, things perk up a little on the birth front when the Aussies began to introduce a string of monetary incentives especially catering to the huge group of single teenage mums who all wanted to give birth after high school as the government pays out close to A$1000 a month till the child reaches adulthood at 18 years old.
Add in unemployment income for the teenage mum and you will understand why the teenage single mum scheme becomes such a popular hit over in the land of the Oz.
Children also receive free education till 18 and if she stays a distance from the university campus she can claim travelling expenses monthly till he graduates.
Of course, the Aussies all pay a hefty income tax of up to 50% to enjoy such luxurious benefits and I am not sure that Singaporeans are ready for that.
I am not saying that Singapore should follow the Aussie way of encouraging our teenagers to become single mums but as this is a drastic situation, much more thought should be given to encourage births here than just the usual baby bonus scheme which hardly tickles the hormones.
Why Singaporeans don’t want to give birth
Moreover, nothing is done concretely to improve our work life balance here besides the rhetorical feel-good message sent out during government-led campaign that will never really takes off without the private sector co-operation.
Many women have cited the chronic work load here that prevents them from wanting to have children and it’s a valid excuse as if you know that you can’t spend enough quality time with your kids then why have them in the first place?
I have worked in government sectors before whereby staff slogged till 7pm daily and when I left work regularly at 6pm I was ticked off by my WDA director five years ago for being unproductive!
The government-led Institute of Policy Studies has also recently published a detailed convincing study pinpointing how many Singaporeans will be gone by a certain time frame if we don’t reproduce theemselves soon and how many foreigners or babies we need before we will all go extinct.
Of course, Singaporeans felt agitated when they are told that due to their own low birth rate , they are told to bear the consequences of having more foreigners taking over our jobs, housing, businesses and eventually the whole country.
Citizens felt besiged by foreign-speaking people in their own land and that is probably why locals prefer to bid up the COEs to six-figure sums than travelling in our MRT trains loaded with foreigners.
Even my foreign friends who are PRs here for decades told me that the place is not unliveable!
Singaporeans have never felt so unbelonged and detached in their whole life as they felt that they are being systematically replaced by foreign workers.
Besides seemingly solving the whole birth rate issue here for our government, foreigners also are brought in to solve a bigger issue for employers - cheap hard-working labour.
Foreigners are brought in on the cheap to perform menial work via the work permit system and head big corporations using the Employment Pass P1/P2.
Experienced well-educated Singaporeans have no choice but to bring their skills abroad where they are better recognised and appreciated – especially in third world countries.
The irony is employers have brought in managers from third world countries like Philippines, PRC China and India to replace them and their quality so far is suspect.
Nowadays, it is also common for our local workers to be the minority worker in the workforce as companies continue to hire cheaper and faster workers using all kinds of work permits available.
Singaporeans felt short-changed and betrayed when they have to report to a foreign manager who could not perform as well as the locals. They are enraged when foreign managers interviewed them and later chose someone of their own kind.
Our productivity has being slipping all this while when we mass-imported foreign workers into our work force and since when have you heard of the best productive worker tag being honoured on us anymore?
When I was still in my early thirties, I was proud to learn that Singaporeans have continously earned the rare honour of being the world’s most productive worker – outperforming workers from the US, Japan and Europe.
I remembered our comapny even threw a small party to celebrate that achievement. Now it felt like a far-fetched dream with so many underperforming foreigners helming the management seats.
Social disharmony increasing
My fear is that by parachuting in foreigners into our midst and trying to solve the population using the copy-and-paste method, we may end up having more porblems on our hands.
Social disharmony is at its worse and I agreed with our DPM Teo in his latest speech in New York during the recent Singapore Day that xenophobic tendencies are at its highest peak now.
Scuffles have broken out here and there during these past few years when foreigners and locals disagreed over simple matters like occupying MRT seats in our congested trains and a riot is also seen as imminent as so far the government does not seem to have a solid integration plan in place.
Moving forward, the country will enter into a state of tension and apprehension as it has never faced such a peculiar foreigner invasion before since independence.
It is anticipated that there will be more skirmishes involving dissatisfied Singaporeans who felt that foreigners have came and snatched away their jobs.
The Generation Y group may also be more daring and vocal in their expression when it comes to exhibiting anti-foreigner sentiments as when they enter the workforce , they will find that foreign bosses will be interviewing them for positions in the company and they will also have to work under them.
They will also blame their lost opportunities to the influx of foreign workers into the country.
Babyboomers who still need to pay for their mortgages and fund their children educational studies will also lay the blame on the government for allowing in too many foreigners but their dissatisfaction will likely be confined to the internet forums or ballot boxes.
Conclusion
It is however unlikely that we will see a full-scale riot occurring here as any open protest is still being banned by the authorities.
The government will probably face the wrath of the voters at the GE 2016 polls and may lose a few more seats in the process – the slide will however be negated by the 100,000 new citizens harvested during these five years.
By then, we may have close to 1.5 million foreigners in our midst comprising citizens, PRs and those who are on various kinds of work permits and the situation will be as tense as ever.
Written by: Gilbert Goh
Its just an excuse for PAP to bring in voters and increase their bonus via GDP.
They just doesn’t care.
Proportion of foreigners increase by 10% within a decade and Lee Hsien Loong is fine with it. Proportion of opposition MPs in Parliament increase but still less than 10% of the House and he pees in his pants.
Will the new citizens who are not born and bred locally have more babies than us? Maybe they also don’t want to have babies due to work stress? They also don’t have their parents here who can help them look after their babies while they are at work. Or will they bring in their parents to become citizens too?
How can the govt prove that these new citizens will have more children than true blue Singaporeans? Many of us don’t want kids due to the stifling crowds in our midst. So what makes new citizens have more kids when they have the same working hours as us.
Where are we going to live when the population density is ever increasing? Maybe on reclaimed land?
I have even met an ang moh sales girl a few months ago. I think Singapore is getting worse after GE 2011. Therefore, many people refuse to have kids as they don’t want their kids to suffer under an incompetent govt.
I have met more & more foreigners who are having babies in S’pore. But the interesting thing is that they now prefer to have daughters instead of sons. This is quite a big cultural shock as many of these foreigners are from India and China where sons are considered like gold, and daughters are to be aborted.
These foreigners have become so acclimatised to S’pore that they realise that females have a better deal here. They enjoy equal access to education, jobs and salaries, without the danger, the hassle and the discrimination of having NS liability. There is no dowry system here — in fact the guy has to cough up the money to be considered for marriage. Plus S’pore is one of the rare countries where they don’t really have to worry for the safety of daughters, unlike in their home countries or even in many other developed countries.
By having daughters, the foreigners will immediately apply PR for them. Many even apply citizenship for their daughters. This will let them enjoy greatly subsidised medical and education fees for their daughters, as compared to full foreigners. With their ties to their home countries and knowing how 3rd world countries work with under-table money etc, they have no worries about their daughters having citizenship rights in their home countries if they ever need to go back. In the meantime, they take advantage of the education, medical, jobs, salaries and a pedigree professional experience here in S’pore.
Sons will cause more hassle for them if they want to take up PR — need to escape NS before 18. If don’t take up PR, then will be expensive for education and healthcare etc.
So, more & more foreigners I know in professional line, as well as around my housing estate, I see more female babies and toddlers now. For them in the S’pore context, the ideal is to have 2 daughters.
crap…..the author is a real DDDDIIIIICCCKKKK HEAD
u dont even own the name of your country…as its an Indian word…sad on you guys
So who owns S’pore? You?
Our govt behaves like a corporation that sees profit as the be all and end all behind every decision made by senior management. Unscrupulous bosses would rather retrench older and higher paid staff (especially mid-managers) than see a slight dip in their profit margin. They treat even committed staff as mere economic digits. Unfortunately, so do our leaders, who see the importing of foreign PMEs as a quick way to raise GDP, and consequently, the leaders’ already astronomical wages.
Currently the housing price bubble lead to a checkmate situation.
Lots of flats (HDBs/Condos) have been sold at a high price and financed with a 80% or higher loan.
Rooms are rented out to help with mortgage payments or to to provide money during retirement.
If the heat will be taken out of the property market, either by building really a lot of flats fast or reducing the headcount in the country, prices will drop, interest in renting will drop and a lot of Flat owners will face financial problems.
This is also a reason why the population has to grow – to feed this bubble.
The old & familiar word “productivity” was mentioned couple of times during his labour day speech. Productivity was already introduced many years ago & workers have been forced to multitask against their wishes. This is exploitation of cheap labour.
Nowadays, security officers have been used as customer service officers, concierge & carpark attendance etc. They are oftenly being used by building mgmt as shield when customers/residents were angry over their clamped vehicles. Some condo mgmt increase their income by frequently clamp the residents & visitors’ vehicles. Of course, the condo mgmt won’t do the dirty job, they will ask the security officers to do it. The condo mgmt hide one side when security officers clashed with the car owners. Security officers will be requested to be transfer out or leave to make peace with the car owners by the condo mgmt. Ask the security officers in CBM & Shine security & you will know.
Cleaners have to clean up toilets, rubbish, tablets & leftover swiftly without any delays & at many times used as movers. But wages seldom increase in line with productivity & workloads but only the amount of complains for poor service or slow service will increase. That’s why some hawker centres are always lack of cleaners. Who knows whether the so called best out-sourcing policy will work or not?
Factory operators were forced to speed to assemble parts in the production lines. Some factories also don’t provide sits coz mgmt worried that it will slow down the production speed. That is why until today we still have the sweatshop or sweat factory phenomenon. Foxcomm is the world most famous sweat factory now.
Retail assistants were forced to recruit customers for memberships to generate more income for the companies. A quota was set for every retail assistants. If anyone fails to meet the quota, he/she will be in trouble. No increment, poor working performance reports, no AWS, no bonus or maybe ask to leave. The basic wage for the retail assistant is only $900. This is the wage paid 10 years ago when working in retail. Still only $900 until today whereby inflation has already gone up! Retail assistant is only $900 but the boss & his wife are driving expensive luxury cars. Ask the retail staff in Challenger & you will know.
Freight-forwarding officers or shipping assistants or customer service assistants were paid with low wages & forced to work OT and sometimes without OT pay. Executive/Manager will teach you one time & then dump all the paperwork to you. If you can’t finish it, you better find a way to finish even if you have to work until late night or come back during weekends/PH. They won’t assign another person to help you coz they want to minimise costs & maximise profits. Ask the logistics/shipping staff in YCH, CWT, Toll, Fujifilm Hunts & Nova Shipping etc & you will know.
Some storekeepers monthly basic wage are as low as $900. Storekeepers now must have forklift & class 3/4/5 driving license; know how to drive reach truck; physically fit coz no more lorry attendance will be hire to help carry those heavy goods. Sometimes, storekeepers will be used as debt collectors to chase after unsettle payments by clients. Ask the storekeepers working in ST synthesis, Etana resource services & DHL & you will know.
Nowadays, at many occasions, a worker has to multi-task several roles which mean one person doing two persons’ jobs but with low pay. If productivity scheme is still being enhanced & expanded further, I afraid that one person will have to do three or four persons’ jobs. Whether wage will increase in line with the workload or not itself is a BIG question mark.
Singaporean workers are hardworking enough. LHL, stop talking about productivity, investors, FT/FW, PR, birth rate, GDP & social safety net etc. Pls talk more on anti-exploitation of cheap labour, implementing of minimum wages & happiness index etc.
貧者越貧, 富者越富; 富屋窮人, 富國窮民.
Wow!!! Where did you get so much information on exploitation of cheap local labour? It is happening almost everywhere, even in govt sectors! No boss in the right mind nowadays will pay you one unit of salary for one unit of work. The norm is to pay you one unit of salary for 1.5 unit of work without OT. So many people are working late and the boss scolds you for low productivity!! Many employees, esp. those who are old, will endure the unreasonable workload and long hours until they earn enough to retire. Thus, nobody wants to have babies nowadays to avoid having their children to suffer their fate in future Singapore.
PAP leaders consistently heartless and inept. Current crop of out of work Sporeans and 45% of workers either foreigners or PRs go way back to 80′s when many are forced to cut their tubes or legate after 2 children. PAP starting playing god and it came to hit them years later with falling birth rates. Then they increase public housing to ‘market price’ sparking off spiralling inflation and making housing unaffordable except based on 20-25 years of debt. Sporeans now live like 2nd class citizens on low wages, jobs going to foreigners and fighting for their share of basic amenities like transport, medical etc.. While govt continues to play its heartless ‘productivity’ tunes and still today is not accountable to the citizenry it has sucked and continues to suck dry. If just 10% of money lost in bad investments by GIC is used for welfare for aged, infirm or those facing financial difficulties, the collective lot of Singaporeans will be easier. When will the people say ‘enough’ you are the slave driver who has lost all rights to ‘rule’. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Once we had an easy going, dondang sayang culture. Today the place is an unrecognisable hotbed of greed and two societies of the have nots made up of mainly Singaporeans and an elite of the ruling class and foreign wealth.
There is a lot of truth to what you have written. Frankly, it’s terrifying.
The influx of foreign workers in Singapore is the main caouse of the rapid increase of prices for renting apartments. As a result, not anybody else but Singaporeans are benefited. Many of them rent apartments and resign out of their job. Foreginers cannot hold any property in Singapore. Some foreigners are in the elite but not all. What is more they are not there without any reason. These are people who are highly specialized and have work experience from many countries. The truth is that Sinagporean government is protecting the job market. It is almost impossible for the middle skilled foreigner to get job here.As for productivity I think the main reason is education system in Singapore. Many employers in Singapore are complaining that Singaporeans will do just what they will ask them to do but they lack of creativity. It is not my opinion. What is more, there is culture of work here. The fact that one worker is forced to do many unrelated things is coused by Asian work culture- which is based on the belief that the more the better. However, is is not true beocuse working for doesn’t make you particulary efficient. working for 13 hours a week can be partly the couse of lower productivity of Singaporeans.