Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Emergency jobs program

Monday, November 30, 2009

Emergency jobs program

It's time for an emergency jobs programme. Low interest rate will not create jobs. Here is a view from a renowned economist.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...: Jobs creation will not happen anytime soon.

We have an entire generation of senior corporate managers who reached their current positions by cutting costs and jobs in their companies.

When there is no more fat left to cut in their own company, they then go out and buy or merge with another company. They now have an enlarged company with two IT departments, two HR departments and etc. And then they go back to cutting everything down again.

These senior managers only know how to cut costs and jobs. They don't know how to create new products and services. But somehow, everyone sings their praises for the astute "management" skills.

The scary thing is that this is now happening on a global scale with global companies. Imagine one global HR department instead of many local HR departments in many countries. This happened recently in a global oil company with a big operation here in Singapore. Somehow, our investigative journalists in Straits Times did not report that story.

There is still a lot of quiet retrenchment going on. But in order not to get it reported in the newspaper as retrenchments (bad publicity), those workers are sacked for not performing.

Don't believe me? The issue of pregnant women being sacked have been going on for years. But only suddenly, a certain newspaper dramatically discovered this phenomenon.

There are lots of other cases of unfair dismissals going on. Just ask quietly around.

We live in a culture and climate of profits before people.

Your only recourse is to think Mercenary and Global. Never Loyalty and Local.; November 30, 2009 6:28 PM
Anonymous said...: Anon 6.28 pm,

You are very right. In fact people who worked for 10 or 20 years with a company and got no performance problems all this while suddenly got one this year and got terminated.

So what can these people do? Just hope that they are prudent during good years and save enough to prepare for this outcome and just retire, even if only 40+ years old. Or be their own boss.

This is the reality for middle age Singaporeans unlucky enough to be in above situation.

Or maybe a blessing in disguise for some who may even succeed by being their own boss!; November 30, 2009 8:51 PM
Anonymous said...: REX comments as follows,

Actually, the culling of jobs is usually out of necessity because of weak demand for a company's goods and services. To be fair, everyone has a part to play. If you and I started da-bao home cooked food to work everyday and stop patronising the restaurants, then F&B industry would have to freeze expansion plans and even retrench staff - just an example, could be applied to any industry in the economy.

So I don't think those "senior managers" like to cut jobs for the sake of cutting jobs. Sometimes when the P&L of the company goes in the wrong way, it is very frightening. The company will be in serious trouble if nothing is done, the easiest way out being to cut jobs, since staff costs usually are the heaviest components in P&L.

I think to maintain jobs, we have to do our part, firstly, keep spending and don't save in panic-mode as this would have a negative impact on all sorts of companies providing the goods and services. Secondly, we have to invent new goods and services to stimulate new demand, new market, to sustain the jobs.

Government expenditure must increase, government should take active role. I don;t understand why we need so many foreign workers. I also don;t understand why they always point the finger back at workers for being choosy, when actually the govt done nothing (except the stupid Casino) to create a long term job sustainability plan. If they plan to expand the population to 5 or 6 million they should have a job sustainability plan otherwise don't compound our problems on this miserable plot of land which we don't even know is city or country now.

REX; November 30, 2009 10:21 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: One way to get more people employed is to have everyone work less hours (with proportionately less pay, based on the hours worked).

It is fairer for the available work to be shared by the available workers, rather than have some people overworked (to keep their jobs) and other people unemployed.

In many countries, there is a cap on the number of hours worked per week, beyond which overtime has to be paid at a higher hourly rate. This is aimed at achieve a similar purpose.

I have written on this idea in a previous posting.; November 30, 2009 10:56 PM
Anonymous said...: A 70+yo relative wish to work part-time. She asked who want her?

Why she want to work again after 30years retirement?
A1. Work and paid to cover medical cost for her 89yo husband (LONG LIFE BECOME A BURDEN !)

A2. Her child (50+) already retire involuntary (not a private sector!)

A3. Another child's income (Taxi) is getting lower. To feed parent, he does not have enought money to married even a Vietnam wife !; November 30, 2009 11:23 PM
Anonymous said...: In response to REX.

Back in the early 1990s, when I worked for this oil company. There was an internal memo announcing record profits by the International Division in the opening paragraph.

In the final paragraph of this same memo, the company announced a 10% workforce reduction in this same International Division that generated the record profits.

Being young and naive, I read and re-read that memo about 10 times to make sure that I did not misunderstand its contents.

It's no longer about cutting the workforce only when the company is suffering a loss. It's all about relentlessly increasing profits by increasing revenues and cutting costs.

Senior managers are paid bonus for achieving or exceeding profit targets. And they get fired for missing profit targets.

So they will do whatever they can to achieve or exceed their profit targets for the quarter. Even if that means firing 10% of the workforce to achieve that quarterly profit target.

Senior managers want their profit-linked bonus TODAY, because they may get fired in the next quarter if they miss their profit targets.

Think short term because there is no long term job security.

Always ask "How does this benefit me?"

Think mercenary. Work only for the highest paymaster.

Marriage and kids will only slow you down.

If you are a woman, getting ready to be fired has to be part of your pregnancy planning process.

Good Luck. You have been warned.; November 30, 2009 11:48 PM
Anonymous said...: Obama will be convening a high level jobs "brainstorming" with his advisors in Dec. Let's see what / how the US will approach their 17.5% and increasing unemployed and under-employed situation.

As for us in S'pore, I have to agree with REX. Govt does not seem to have a sustainable employment programme, especially for *citizens* --- just cheaper, better & faster.

I won't be surprised if the unemployment rate for citizens is 5%, compared to the widely reported overall unemployment rate of 3.1% or so. Logical because if PRs or foreigners have higher or even the same level of unemployment, we should see more outflow of them over the past 1 year, instead of increasing inflow.

Ex-Con; December 01, 2009 1:15 AM
Anonymous said...: Mr Tan, your idea may be workable.
It requires political will.
One reason why this route is not taken is because it allows the population too much free time.
This means time to think and to get organised.. it is deemed extremely dangerous and unsettling.; December 01, 2009 4:40 AM
Anonymous said...: REX comments as follows,

If i understand Mr tan correctly, you suggest that the workers work less at lesser pay, and then if demand picks up they get more by the overtime payments. This is good idea from the employer point of view, and is also very good idea from the employee point of view.
However, i think it applies to the working level units, i.e. the insurance agent runners, the assembly line technicians, the factory workers. But, What do you do with the managerial level staff who are not traditionally paid on per-hour basis? How do you convert them to per hour basis to implement your proposal? Managerial staff don't clock in and out, because they are mostly doing creative thinking, negotiations, strategy creations, and they are not operating on fixed time-in and tim-out like the mass-labour units of factory workers and insurance runners.

So how do you implement the proposed scheme on such groups, which also form a very substantial part of the manpower costs of any large company struggling to survive in an environment of plummeting demand for its products and services?.

REX; December 01, 2009 9:13 AM
Anonymous said...: REX comments as follows,

IT was quite surprising example you cited that 20 years ago your company retrenched staff in a department which showed growth. Could this be an isolated case? Could it be due to office-politics? Power struggle, reconsolidation politics? I don't think it is common to see retrenchment implemented in any company which is enjoying profit growth. More comments from readers would be illustrative.

Anyway, back to the original positive proposal by Kin Lian, i am still curious to know how his proposal may be applied to the thousands and thousands of senior and middle management staff who are not bound by time-scale. Though the proposal is very good for the mass-labour units of factory workers, I would like to know how it can keep those jobs which are not time-based.. for example the bosses hierachy of those very time-based labour units... it could seem strange if a company implement the proposal on the lower level staff then keep all the non time-based staff hanging around supervising people clocking less hours as proposed. As far as a company is concerned it can only implement a complete solution not piecemeal solution which helps one sector of its workforce only, isn't it so?

REX; December 02, 2009 8:47 AM