Tan Kin Lian's Blog: More business for taxi drivers

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

More business for taxi drivers

A taxi company boss told me that the business for taxi drivers has picked up significantly since the opening of the Sentosa integrated resort (aka casino). The average earnings of taxi drivers has increased to $2,500 compared to $2,000 previously. Some taxi companies have applied to the Government for work permits for taxi drivers from overseas - due to shortage of locals willing to be taxi drivers. I hope that more unemployed workers will come forward to try driving a taxi.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...: So who says our government cannot create high quality jobs for our graduates and unemployed.

$2,500 a month salary will definitely feed a family of four in Singapore.

With that type of money, can even afford to send our children to elite schools and look after our ageing parents at the same time.

Certainly more than enough money
left over for savings for my old age and medical expenses.

So stop being so negative Singapore. Cheer up. The future is bright!; April 06, 2010 5:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Alot of older workers with degrees used to be willing to work as taxi drivers. What happen?; April 06, 2010 5:48 PM
Anonymous said...: Sometimes I think that the argument of employers wanting to employ foreigners because it's cheaper thus depriving S'poreans of a job is not necessary true because I believe there are S'poreans who want less working hours and high pay which does not match with the reality at all.

So the story about S'poreans deprived of jobs because the foreigners come and steal them is just a one sided story.; April 06, 2010 7:58 PM
Sylvester Lim said...: Hi Kin Lian, if memory serves me right, in the late 1990s, Taxi drivers had a strike at Changi Airport. Subsequently, no more private taxi licenses were issued & Taxi companies were started to keep the drivers in line. Without these Taxi companies as the middleman, Taxi drivers would have much larger take home income as they own the taxis themselves or can have a more relaxed life than what is currently happening.; April 06, 2010 10:09 PM
Anonymous said...: well the taxi boss is full of sheet.
Ask me the driver who on the road, it's taxis everywhere and at anytime. Just go to airport and see... taxis Q for more than an hour to get pax ... if business is good, why would they do that??

Even foreign pax tell me the taxi fare here is so low.; April 07, 2010 2:23 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to 5:37 PM

I believe that you are being sarcastic, but many people may not realise it. They are not so sophisticated. It is better to be more direct.; April 07, 2010 4:53 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to 2:23 PM

Please state your comment without attacking other people, i.e. the taxi company boss.

He sees the figures everyday, in the number of people that hire his taxis and the number of trips that they make. So, it is likely that his figures are more reliable and up to date, compared to your own figures.

It is not proper for you to use expletive to describe his views - even if you are right.; April 07, 2010 4:56 AM
Anonymous said...: It's not so easy to get a driver's licence in Singapore. Difficult to pass lah!

So of course you have a drivers shortage.; April 07, 2010 7:56 AM
Anonymous said...: Rex comments as follows,

Anon 5.37 said "So who says our government cannot create high quality jobs for our graduates and unemployed."

I find it strange that he/she made this statement in relation to the article about "Taxi drivers getting more business". Is he/she trying to say that Taxi drivers are the ideal employment mode for "graduates"? How desperate, if it is true, and what a waste of resources to train up a person in university for four years to be a taxi driver.

Well, ok, for non graduate unemployed anon 5.37 is correct, for, - numerically - it is good news that taxi drivers can get more business now.

Nevertheless, I feel that this business is not the kind that I like. We have prostituted the country into accepting the evils of Casino (not one but two) into this very tiny small country, and in exchange there is an expected mini-boom in anciliary services such as taxi drivers. More business can be expected, as big time triad-gangs/prostitution rings, and the like establish base in Singapore soon. From the GDP angle and numerically no one can argue that the numbers are all positive, we are succeeding, hurrah pay the ministers more.

But in Life, not everything is made up of numbers alone. The long term erosion of the social fabric is something not to be underestimated.

Remember, anon 5:37, a wise man once said
Conscience is that part of you which feels bad when every other part feels good.
In this regard it is my personal view that Lee Kuan Yew has no more conscience left, allowing not just one but TWO casino's into Singapore. I am sorry anon 5:37, numbers alone do not cheer me up, I am not a machine.

rex; April 07, 2010 8:01 AM
Vincent Sear said...: Taxi companies are like tiered insurance agency managers. They will never say their business is saturated or slowing down. They welcome all, the more the merrier.

Taxi companies collect rents. The more rental out, the more profits. The cabbies' personal net incomes are their own problems.

Even in a scenario when cabbies' average income is really rising, introducing more cabs would bring it back down again. Supply to demand ratio economics.

When demand is more than supply, passengers suffer the costs in terms of inconvenience and waiting time. Cabbies don't really make more. There's only so many hours in a working day or shift.

When supply is more than demand, cabbies suffer the extra competition imposed by market. Make dangerous stops to get more business or join long queues to get more lucrative business.

Taxi companies maintain their fleets of taxis. Their concerns are maintain 100% rentals and possible expansion of fleets.; April 07, 2010 10:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Mr Tan,

You were misled by the taxi company boss. He may be making use of you to promote his agenda.

Taxi drivers do not draw fixed salary from taxi company. Currently, taxi drivers already pay an exhorbitannt rent (S$200-S$300 per day) to rent taxi from taxi company. Even if taxi driver has no business, they still have to pay rent to taxi company.

If taxi company lowers their rental rates, surely more Singaporeans would become taxi drivers. We also need to give taxi drivers room to breathe. They need to feed family.

The taxi company boss is probably acting out of pure corporate greed. I know that in China, taxi drivers are willing to pay S$30,000 upfront for rights to drive taxis. They probably would be willing to pay even more to drive taxis in Singapore. Allowing foreign taxi drivers may only enable our greedy taxi companies to extort S$200,000 upfront from each taxi driver.

But would Singapore and tourists to Singapore be well served by taxi drivers from China, who cannot speak English, don't know Singapore's roads and come from very rough background?; April 08, 2010 11:40 AM
Anonymous said...: I think we need to cut our self employed people (eg. taxi drivers, agents, freelancers) and small business owners some slack. These people also have mouths to feed. We should not enable taxi companies to force taxi drivers to pay high rentals or high deposits/ commissions/fees, so that they too can earn a decent, honorable living.

If you look at the life insurance market, the root of the problem is the corporate greed of the multinational insurance company. The insurance agent may be willing to earn just a 10% commission, but due to the multi-level over-riding commissions for their superiors, life insurance became a crappy product. And the agents are coerced too push a crappy prooduct. If general insurers can afford to pay a basic wage (and deliver products that people need), why can't life insurers pay basic salary too.

If we want to implement minimum wage policies, we must make sure these multinational insurance companies, property agencies pay their staff good minimum wage too.; April 08, 2010 12:10 PM
Anonymous said...: We should take care not to force people (esp. our own Singaporean people) to the end of the road..

Taxi company CEOs already earn a good salary. We should not allow them to raise the upfront fees and rental rates from ordinary taxi drivers, just so that the CEO can earn bigger salary/ bonus?

We cannot allow taxi company to destroy the livelihooods of tens of thousands of local taxi drivers, just so that CEO enjoy a bigger salary/ bonus. We should not allow taxi company to force taxi drivers into heavy debt or bankruptcy.

If taxi company lowers their rental rates and upfront fees, perhaps they can attract Malay brothers to become taxi drivers, which I'm sure a lot of them are keen (politicians targeting Malay vote, pls pay attention)... P.S. Why so few Malay taxi-drivers nowadays?

Our law currently disallows foreigners to become taxi drivers. I think apart from Class 3 license, taxi drivers need special permits from govt dept. Unless the taxi CEO is using some underhand tactics/ or lobbying some politician, I don't see how he can obtain taxi permits for foreigners.

But I do know that in Fujian, some syndicates are selling China taxi licenses for more than S$30,000, and they are trying to procure (using underhand tactics) foreign taxi permits to on-sell in China at much higher rates.

Taxi companies are already given a privileged duopolistic/ oligopolistic environment in Singapore. Other industries deal with more competition/ constraints. Why do the CEOs still grumble, complain? If they are so disatisfied with being a taxi company CEO, they can feel free to resign and switch job. Nobody put a gun on their heads to make them be CEO.; April 08, 2010 3:26 PM
Anonymous said...: If we want better customer service from taxi drivers, we should allow taxi drivers to earn a larger share of his fruits of labour. I cannot understand what service/ support does taxi company provide to justify the high rates they charge the taxi driver.

Similarly, if we want Singaporeans to be gracious, we must first make sure these big corporations are gracious to Singaporeans first. Make sure big corporations treat their employees, taxi-drivers, agents, contractors, suppliers, customers, properly.

Sometimes, some people have been mistreated in life. Some of them would take it in their stride, and try to change society for the better, so that other people do not suffer the same mistreatment they suffered. But some people may feel that being mistreated in the past now gives them the right to mistreat other people, so that other people would experience the suffering they did.

Look at Sheng Siong's case. Perhaps the boss felt aggrieved when his pig farm was snatched away from him by some developer, taking away his livelihood. Now that he is rich, he has no qualms raising rental at wet markets. And he can afford expensive lawyers.

Look at insurance agents. Perhaps they felt deceived by insurance company which promised them S$2,000 basic monthly salary, which were never paid (p.s. how come we can proseccute a homekeeper foor missing 2 months of maid's salary, and not prosecute insurance company for not paying the promised basic salary)? So now the agent felt he has a right to con consumers into bad insurance products.

Perhaps the property agent felt mistreated when he had to pay S$800 course fee to property company, and the property boss spent 5 days merely boasting about his expensive bungalows, expensive holidays and his wife's branded handbags. So he felt it is ok to do slipshod job as property agent.

When all these mistreatment happened, did we (the society) stand for their rights, or did we step aside?; April 08, 2010 3:51 PM
Anonymous said...: taxi fare here is not low, i need to pay more than 30 dollars to get to work from north to west...with all the peak hour surcharges, how can taxi fare here be low...; April 09, 2010 12:28 AM
Anonymous said...: dont' allow foreigners to drive taxis...their dubious background is a concern....what if they have criminal records overseas and will be a threat to passenger safety; April 09, 2010 12:30 AM
Anonymous said...: The taxi company boss is totally wrong about a shortage of Singaporeans who want to drive taxis.

1. Look the long Q of people wanting to take the taxi course.

2. If he is SMRT taxi boss, ask him about the fact that if their Crown or Cedric gets rear ended through no fault of the taxi driver, why is it that SMRT's standard policy is to scrap the vehicle and punish the taxi driver with a $2500 excess? SMRT should have made an insurance claim for this sure win case. But no, these bastards insist on conveniently scrapping an old taxi and making the poor uncle pay. No wonder SMRT got shortage of drivers. Go ask the SMRT Crown and Cedric drivers. Guaranteed they will swear and curse the company.; April 09, 2010 7:32 AM
Anonymous said...: Not only would I oppose allowing foreigners to be taxi drivers, I would go one step further to propose restricting the pool of available local recruits for taxi companies. I hope this will force taxi companies reduce the rental charges to taxi drivers. I also don't mind if the taxi company CEO has to beg taxi drivers to join his company, and apologize for his past exploitation of taxi drivers. One good way to restrict available taxi driver recruits is that all new taxi driver recruits need to pass exams on ethics, customer service and etiqeatte; April 09, 2010 1:33 PM
Anonymous said...: Whenever any of you are irritated by a taxi-driver, consider this: how did the CEO of taxi company recruit taxi-drivers? Did he choose drivers based on social etiquette, or did he merely select the taxi-drivers who paid him the most money?

Taxi drivers deserved to earn several times more than salary workers because they undertake more risks. Before they start work and earn 1st $, they already had to pay an obscene amount of money to taxi company. Then they had to pay taxi rental, diesel, as overheads even if they have no customer. And they don't have secured monthly salary. Their stress is not only physical work, but also mental stress, emotional stress, financial stress.

While current local taxi drivers may need to learn from Japan, EU and Aust in areas of customer service, at least local taxi drivers are honest, decent folks. We should not push local taxi drivers to the brink and import poor taxi practices from India and China.

In countries such as India and China, b'cos taxi drivers are pushed to the brink by taxi companies, they had to supplement their daily takings with commissions from hotels. Inevitably, some gangster-controlled hotels were offering the highest commissions.

Tourists sometimes ask taxi drivers for independent advice on hotel stay. Some of the taxi-drivers would then recommend the gangster-controlled hotel (cos highest commission). Not only would gangster-controlled hotel provide poor value to tourist, the tourist may even be held hostage and extorted for ransom.

The taxi-driver felt justified in his actions b'cos he feels that is what taxi company did to him. Furthermore, the crime did not take place in his taxi, and he did not directly participate in the crime.

What was private gains for taxi company and the CEO turned out to be tremendous social costs many times over. Consumers, tourists, police, tourism promotion dept, society, govt, economy have to foot the bill for the greedy taxi company.

Sometimes, I think we have taken the concept of cost competiveness and profit maximization to extreme levels, and it is time to turn back.

Look at Li Ka-Shing. In his business dealings, he believes in leaving something on the table (i.e. profit) for everybody.

Look at Steve Jobs. He enables software/applications developers, musicians, artists to make money on his Apple platform. He lets his distributors make money. He does not try to consume/ corner all the profit for himself.; April 09, 2010 9:12 PM
Anonymous said...: If the taxi company CEO recruits taxi drivers based solely on which taxi driver pays him most money, it is bad for society. Obviously, the more aggressive, irresponsible taxi drivers would earn more money, and so can afford to pay taxi company CEO more money. But does this do any good for the rest of us?

The govt should do something about the recruitment practices of irresponsible taxi companies, before it results in tragedy.; April 10, 2010 3:23 PM

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

More business for taxi drivers

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