Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Immigrants into Singapore

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Immigrants into Singapore

Read this article by Yoong Siew Wah.

My comments
The writer said that 30,000 PMETs have lost their jobs and are still unemployed. I do not know if this figure is accurate. Can someone help to find the source?

26 comments:

Anonymous said...: I am one of them. I registered with NWCDC but lately I discover my file has been closed without ever finding me a job.; April 21, 2010 7:39 AM
Anonymous said...: When we have so many Foreign "Talent" employers are spoit for choices. What can we do ?? You have to make a decision when the time comes.; April 21, 2010 8:23 AM
Anonymous said...: Let's start by asking what is the official definition of unemployed that is used in calculating the statistics.

Are the following examples "unemployed"?:

A 45 year old PMET working as a taxi driver,
- who has given up finding a suitable job commensurate with his capabilities

A 45 year old female PMET. Unemployed for 2 years. Staying at home as a housewife while looking for a job. Is she a housewife (hence fully employed) or an unemployment statistics? In the income tax returns, she is a "housewife" for income tax purposes.; April 21, 2010 9:11 AM
Anonymous said...: MOM figures are so dodgy. Where did the writer gather the information from? How much must you earn to be consider a PMET?; April 21, 2010 9:15 AM
Anonymous said...: From anecdotal evidence, it is true that middle age (40 and above)retrenched or unemployed PMETs have great difficulty find jobs even below their qualifications, let alone at their qualifications.

Unless become taxi driver or what not agents. Or do business.

Or to be invited or headhunted to a senior job position. Forget about applying for a job.; April 21, 2010 9:24 AM
Anonymous said...: I am also one of them. We are excess redundant resources the govt conveniently ignored. Losing of 30,000 votes is no big deal. The number 30.000 is close to 10,000 Minibond victims so they just ignore, don't talk about and we will just fade away.

30,000 + 10,000 is 40,000 which has no significant impact. This does not affect their plan to ask for Minister pay raise after the election. Anyway, if we factor in a family of 4, the number is 160,000. This number is significant but what is the chances that all will vote against the ruling party? If you know PAP, they would probably ignore us and when election rally starts, the propaganda machine will start singing the same old song:

i) Govt credited for Sgp Economy recovery.
ii) Govt credited for having recession aid and successfully turn Sgp Economy Around.
iii) Govt and Civil Servants took deep cut to support slowing economy.
iv) Sgp, being a small state, must have forward looking leaders. If not, we will fail or die.
v) Sgp must have uncorrupt and honest leaders to continue to progress. But citizens must pay through the nose.
vi) Sgp Govt is No. 1 in
- copy other countries strategies
- repeat to singaporeans what other countries leaders' said
- Has a world class financial and business-like environment to attract investments where all big foreign banks are never wrong.
- Have 1.25 million foreigners in Sgp and sacrificing 30,000 PMET to lasting unemployment.

Best of all is they lead the World Govt in increasing their own salary. They are going to ask for more soon....I wish some of the Minister can join me in the unemployment pool but it is just a dream because with the $millions a year salary, they have more than enough.; April 21, 2010 9:48 AM
Anonymous said...: Minister Mentor commented that Singapore will need PMET Foreign Talents. I think he is not aware how the local retrenched PMETs, aged 45 to 60, are suffering. They either cannot get another PMET job, or get one at a 'steep discount' of their last drawn salary.

I am one of them.

It is actually very easy for the gahmen to track such unfortunate people. Just check who had been paying income tax consistently, and had since stopped paying income tax for more than one year.

I am one of them. PC; April 21, 2010 10:34 AM
Anonymous said...: I remembered about wanting a policy of graduates marrying gratuades to create a superior breed of offsprings.....the best part of the story goes like this, some of the Ex-PMETS that I know are even graduates who are driving taxis these days!

In India, many graduates are road sweepers too.....may be one day in Singapore, they may end up as cleaners too! just like we have some Filipino maids who are graduates too.

Let be practical,let the 50s retire and start recruiting the many thousands of unemployed PMETS.

Simply do not put the "cart before the horse"; April 21, 2010 11:17 AM
Anonymous said...: Maybe you want to try out this website & deposit your resume with them instead.

http://www.pmet.com.sg/career.html; April 21, 2010 12:08 PM
Anonymous said...: I always suspect the numbers are being massaged by someone. Both unemployment data and GDP growth. How can GDP jump over 30% in one quarter? Obviously there is an anomaly hidden somewhere in the stats.
People higher up are getting more evil by the day. They will do anything to spruce up their prospects.
In the US, there is a website http://www.shadowstats.com hosted by John Williams. It published independent economic data. Some Americans have lost faith in government stats. They rely on this website for paid research on economic data & numbers to do their planning and forecasting. Most times, US GDP figures are revised down in subsequent quarters. But the effect of optimistic GDP aids in pushing up the equity markets in the short term.

Corporations massage their earnings too.
Enron is a good example. General Electric is another. Banks in US are resorting to accounting changes to hide their losses in real estate. How much longer can they hide, I wonder?

I believe something is seriously wrong with Singapore economy. Gov is looking into releasing GNP instead of GDP data. Why?

I am not talented enough to confidently say where is the crux of our present woes.
But I am very sure our golden age is history. Judging by the high number of unemployed PMETs, the number of job seekers failing to find a suitable job after more than 12 months, heavy reliance on foreign man-power & foreigners' spending and weak consumer stats. Also, inflation may be hiding behind some of the indicators.
Is it the failure of the capitalism model? Of course, a key answer is GREED. And at the expense of our fellow countryman. We over build and over expanded, resulting in inevitable overcapacity and glut. In property, the over-supply is absorbed by foreigners buying and property investment funds. The population is increased which creates a new set of problems later.

Arm66; April 21, 2010 1:05 PM
Anonymous said...: I work in the civil service (stats board) and i'm worry about my job too. The top management have indicated in this year staff conference that they will be "helping" all the staff to increase our productivity and thus the pay. This is not a good news to us as this simply mean cutting back on staff headcount and distribute his/her work to other two or three fellow colleages. In this way, they "saved" on 1 staff headcount while "increasing" the other 2 or 3 staff productivity and pay. This is what our government meant by productivity -> Doing more with less.; April 21, 2010 2:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Don't worry. Yr jobs would not be "at risk" b4 election is over.; April 21, 2010 5:39 PM
Anonymous said...: My personal view is Simply that: Productivity = Multi Tasking = Job Stress = Job loss = Cheap Foreign Talent Imports = profitability for companies!; April 21, 2010 7:26 PM
Anonymous said...: Faster, Cheaper and Better.

Faster: i) employ the young.
ii) older workers do two persons work. If he cannot take it, then ask him to leave by writing a bad performance appraisal.

Cheaper: i) employ higher qualification people from overseas with same or lower salary. Not important whether cert is genuine or not. Important is salary must be cheap.

ii) Employ local PMET who are out of job for a long time. Cut their salary down by at least 70%.

iii) Employ cheap and higher qualified oversea people to do 2-3 local people job with minimum benefits e.g. contract workers.

Better: As long as one is careful with the above two, the outcome is better for the mgt and organization. "Colour of cat is not important, as long as it can catch mouse" --> local or foreigners is not important, as long as they come cheap, can work faster and definitely deliver a better result in terms of $ and quality. If do not deliver, change worker as all of them are contact workers.

I am one of the unemployed. I am not a business man. I am middle age and have several tertiary education. If I can sit down and think of the above, I bet SMEs can too.

Everyone, don't kid yourself. Nothing will change. With all the Wayang of getting women back to work, getting PMET back to work, increase productivity, end of the day, nothing change. Best is the Govt will return and say that they have tried everything, Singaporeans are too spoilt to work so in order to support economy, more foreigners are needed. This will be done after election because before the election, they will have to show big foreign workers reduction and once they win, the flood gate will reopen. So nothing change. If they want for salary, why get yourself upset since you cannot do anything about. Just double the Minister salary or triple it. Give them whatever they want since there is nothing much you and I can do about it. Especially with the Parliment dominated by one party.

Good luck to all. Nothing change and I will still be unemployed by then.; April 21, 2010 8:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Yah!.. who among us do not know how to control costs? just simply CUT!

No Harvard MBA required to do that!

Hey! I could work as a CEO or Prime Minister!.. ( as said by Jack Neo: "just cut here, and cut here.. so simple! ); April 21, 2010 8:18 PM
Anonymous said...: The truth is that job opportunities are drying up.

But cannot say that since it's political suicide.

So only solution is to get rid of people over 40 years old to make space/jobs for all the new graduates.

This will keep all the young people happy and singing patriot songs until their turn comes when they also hit 40 years old.

Personally, I have no problem with this reality.

What I can't stomach is all the wayang to hide the truth.

The secret is how you define unemployed. Are people who are on those training schemes called unemployed?; April 21, 2010 9:43 PM
bw said...: Anon 9:11 has a good point.

I'm not aware of any country that measures underemployment regularly.

However, in the US, the most comprehensive definition of unemployment (known as U6) includes discouraged, marginally attached and part-time workers. In March, the official definition (U3) showed an unemployment rate of 9.7%, while the U6 rate was 16.9%.

In the U3 measurement, discouraged and marginally attached workers are left out of the labour force, while part-time workers are regarded as employed. A part-time worker is someone who is employed at least 1 hour per week.

S'pore does not publish the U6 rate.

The other interesting thing is that higher education seems to pay in the US, but not much here. In Jan'10, the unemployment rate in the US for workers with less than a high school diploma was abt 15.5% compared with 5% for those with a degree & higher. In S'pore, the unemployment rate for those with secondary education was 2.9% in 4Q'09 compared with 2.6% for those with a degree or higher.

You can find S'pore labour stats here: http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/others/mrsd/Publications.html; April 21, 2010 10:10 PM
Anonymous said...: It is a fact that most developed countries will open their doors to immigrats who are multi skilled,
talented and productive.

Now what happens if the 30,000 PMETs were to pack their bags and leave our shores?........The only think we can do is to open the flood gates for immigrants to make up the shortfall and surely, it will be a different Singapore altogether.; April 22, 2010 10:07 AM
Anonymous said...: I was jobless two years ago at age 59 and still counting.I registered with SWCDC and had been to several job fairs.My concludsion is it's naive to hope for a job at this age.Better accept the reality and retired or be a cheap labour and be exploited.; April 22, 2010 11:58 AM
freemanland said...: I used to think that foreign PMET are taking away our job.

But what i now thinking is.. my job taken away because i am not as good as those foreigner.

So wake up Singaporean!; April 22, 2010 4:49 PM
Anonymous said...: 11:58 AM,

These are occasions where the Govt become DEAF FROGS i.e. not listening, don't care, don't bother and totally ignoring this group of people. Why?

They are the cause and they have no solution.; April 22, 2010 4:58 PM
Anonymous said...: My friends (PMETs) were jobless at 47 to 51.
After 5 years, they still could not find proper jobs. (Do odd jobs or part time occasionally).; April 22, 2010 5:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Poor PMETs being jobless at 47 to 51...........at that age, also difficult to migrate on grounds of
the cut off age at 45.

Many jobless PMETs that I knowm stay at home and wither off slowly,some with resentment and regrets whilst
I was one of them (PMETs)to quit working at age 53, and can count on my Blessings.... now 10 yrs past and at 63 finally retired
We must accept our Fate & Destiny
without any regrets!; April 22, 2010 10:05 PM
Anonymous said...: New survey shows 60% of Singaporeans want to retire by 60
What about the unemployed PMETs,surely they too aspire working longer but with the influx of Foreign Talents & the fact that Singapore will raise the retirement age for its citizens to 65 from 62 by 2012 and eventually to 67. Will things change?; April 22, 2010 10:32 PM
Anonymous said...: The problem is, some who "don't need to work" can work until after their 70s. But many who (e.g. pmet) need money (and work) "loss" their jobs even before they are 50s".; April 23, 2010 6:27 AM
Anonymous said...: And that is why older PMETs get retrenched.

Effective Cut-off age for migration is 45.

Once a PMET becomes 45 years old, he's got no more alternative (i.e. negotiating power) as an employee and as a citizen.

So the older PMET becomes the free resource for Singapore to;
- look after children & grandchildren
- look after ageing parents
- compliant labour for brainless employers and leaders who can only work the cheaper, better, faster way.

Cheaper, better, faster. Do you really need to be a scholar to hand out this type of revelation and insight?

The Singapore Ah Beng salesmen have been using the phrase "cheap and good" for at least 20 years that I am aware of.

Are we so devoid of good ideas that we even have to steal ideas from our under-appreciated Ah Bengs? At least give them an acknowledgment as the source of such inspiration.; April 23, 2010 6:36 AM

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Immigrants into Singapore

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