Hi Gilbert
I read one of your articles on employers’ perspective of hiring locals vs foreigners.
To a good extent, I agree with some of the statements posted by employers that local workers tend to job-hop and find the slightest excuse to leave the company.
Well at least I can draw this conclusion from the actions of my friends and myself.
As locals, we tend to want to exercise our Local Advantage to better our own lives. Its not surprising thus that a better educated and well-informed Gen Y would seek out better employment conditions through leveraging on the Local Advantage.
In Singapore’s job market, today Gen Y indeed enjoys greater mobility across jobs.
Gen Y loves to work in a well-known company in Posh Air-Conditioned Offices, well-dressed to work and going for extended lunch breaks with colleagues. The door must remain open for us to job hop…otherwise how are we gong to upkeep the high costs of living here?
A highly competitive society does not always breed loyal citizens. Unlike a country like Japan who has a rich historical and cultural identity, Singapore is a very young nation with mixed identities and little sense of belonging.
From young we are taught and graded on our performance.
We are not taught to be loyal to anybody. Loyalty is NOT rewarded. Performance and output is EVERYTHING.
The SAF is the only organization here that talks about Loyalty and executes this in the form of compulsory military conscription.
Indeed I know of only very few locals who are truly hardworking and effective. Even more rare are locals who are entrepreneurial.
In a truly meritocratic society, nationality simply does NOT matter. To remain as an Open Society that is Highly Competitive, Singapore has to open its doors to the world and lead by example. This is the Cosmopolitan image that the government wants to promote Singapore to the world.
Unfortunately, however, competition is limited to the private sector.
There is a need to open up competition too in governance, so that more Foreign Talents, in the form of opposition parties, can enter Parliament and enhance the current “Service Levels” to the nation.
So is the government truly practicing what it is preaching in the Foreign Talent policies?
Just as the government says….Cheaper, Better and Faster..this statement also applies to employees who offer their labour in exchange for cash.
Definitely, in a free market environment, people would seek higher compensation and work conditions when opportunity comes. It does not matter if Locals Job Hop because ultimately we should simply Mind our Own Business.
I want a Cheaper, Better and Faster government too. ..
Regds,
Stanley
I am for a cheaper, better and faster government as well!
I need a cheaper,better,faster & also a safer government (we don’t need a government bring in reckless foreigners drivers here). More importantly a government with compassion not just everything GDP…in the past we have this kind of gahmen, now is non-existence after all the old guards pass away..lets hope oppo can form a team & make it happen.
Since we already open up our legs wide-wide to be farked by millions of foreigners, I totally support opening the legs of govt and civil service to mass import cheaper foreigners to take over govt and ministries too. I support having cheap cheena as minister of defence and cheap ahneh as prime minister and cheap peenoi as perm sec of MOM. Oh, and also get rid of the useless airbag president position. Pay these new govt people the same pay as in Australia. We will have at least 2 million foreigners lining up for these jobs. We can organise reality talent shows to select the best.
We (Fellow Singaporeans) spent lots of money and efforts to bring up our children (Singapore) He grew up to become rich and kept wanting to be famous (Good GDP). However, he had long forgotten that we parents only wanted him to care more for us. If he never think and care for us at all, what is the use of him being rich and famous? It is only good for him but not the parents who are struggling here. Sigh-
I hope for a change in government. Period.
As for as our opposition party goes, Cheaper is definitely the word. Better? Like how WP never does anything wrong because they don’t do anything AT ALL? And once they start doing something in Parliament they get so badly exposed it’s embarassing. SDP used to self pwn all the time.They start doing noting, woh now they are semi creditable. THe only reason why the opposition is even anywhere decent is because the voters have issues with the government, not that the opposition are good. U should do well to remember this
Gilbert needs to be stricter in editorial control and discard letters that have nothing to do with the purpose of this NGO, which I gather is to provide emotional and tangible support to the unemployed in Singapore.
The writer starts off by ranting off about the lack of loyalty in a meritocratic society among younger workers and ends off with a political excoriation of the government.
These emotional valve type postings belong to HWZ or Sammyboy, not a front page featured article of a NGO.
I believe Stanley is working in the civil service or a GIC. She obviously didn’t meet alot of bosses from the local SMEs. All the private sectors in Singapore are actually entrepreneurs.
In Singapore, it is the GIC and the Civil Service that is choking the private sectors with their numerous monopoly ties and fake tenders.
I met alot of hardworking Singaporeans in the private sector and alot of lazy Singaporeans from the GICs. But by saying all Gen Y and Singaporeans are lazy made no sense at all.