How can minister tan chuan-jin claim foreigners don't replace locals?

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HOW CAN MINISTER TAN CHUAN-JIN CLAIM FOREIGNERS DON'T REPLACE LOCALS?

Post date:
24 Apr 2015 - 3:43pm












Article in response to Minister for Manpower Tan Chuan Jin blog about foreingers not replacing Singaporeans.

Minister has placed a hypothesis that if foreign PMET is displacing Singaporean PMET, “the unemployment rate of Singaporean PMETs must have risen significantly over the years”. He then highlighted “the unemployment rate of Singapore PMET remained low at 2.9% in 2014”. Interestingly, the resident unemployment rate for degree holders has indeed risen from 2.6% in 2011 to 2.9% in 2014 (while the unemployment rate for non-tertiary resident has gone down during the same period) . That is a clear indication that his hypothesis is correct: the influx of foreign PMET is displacing Singaporean PMET. In fact, his hypothesis should that the unemployment rate of Singapore PMETs must have dropped (or at least maintained) over the years even with the huge influx of Foreign PMETs, as our economic have generated sufficient jobs to justify the need of Foreign PMETs.

Minister should also clarify why he perceived Singaporean PMETs unemployment rate of 2.9% is considered low, not high. After all, our government have successfully achieved in bring down the overall unemployment rate to about 2% since 2007, with the exception during 2009 financial crisis when the rate went back to 3% . Would MOM be allowing the “low” rate of 2.9% to worsen beyond 3% in the coming years (before taking reactive actions to bring it down)?

Minister continued to point out that the real median inflation adjusted income of Singaporean PMETs grew by 2% per annum (between 2009 to 2014) & the growth of foreign PMETs has slowed (between 2011 to 2014). It would be useful if he can clarify firstly why Singaporean PMETs should be contented with that 2% pa growth & secondly whether the influx of foreigner PMETS is one of the reason why the real median income of Singaporean PMETs didn’t grow beyond 2% pa. It should be noted that slower growth in foreign PMETs does not mean lesser overall total foreign PMETs. It only means lesser newly created position (or replacement position) being taken up by new foreign PMETs each year. In fact, the overall number foreign PMETs (SP/EP) have increased from 179000 to 350000 during 2009 to 2014, a 77% in five years.

We should also look the redundant statistic. The PMET share of residents made redundant has risen from 40% in 2007 to 66% in 2014 . The percentage of Degree holder residents made redundant has moved up from 30% in 2010 to 41.3% in 2014 . The most worrying trend is that more than 50% of those Degree holder residents made redundant are unable to find a job within 6 months . Even MOM’s report state that “Reflecting the strong competition for jobs among degree holders, the re-entry rate for resident degree holders declined in 2014, while all other educational groups saw improvement in rates.” . Does the influx of foreigner PMETS totally unrelated to the worrying trend?

Already nearly one in two (45%) of resident PMETs had undergone training & have high training intensity (5.7 days per adult) in 2014 . So, do foreign PMETs have more training than Singaporean PMETs, as they seem to have “the necessary skills required to perform the job” whereas Singaporean PMETs don’t.

Or do we just simply need the opportunity to be employed, to gain new experience & to progress toward realizing our dreams & aspiration?











Lastly, we should also understand how the negative anxieties over foreign competition for PMET jobs can spread easily on the ground. It’s difficult to not feel the present of 350 000 foreign PMETs here, especially locals reporting to them. People can also easily view their profile through LinkedIn. A simple assumption of 3 locals who might feel that they are capable of taking on the foreign PMET role can easily added-up to 1 million unhappy locals who believe their opportunity to progress is taken by foreign PMETs. In additional, the 27400 unemployed tertiary-educated residents (as on Dec 14) can easily influence more than 10 family members/relatives/friends on their negative anxieties. Should the government address these anxieties by denial?

In closing, I would task the government to achieve two key performance indicators: (1) improve the resident unemployment rate for degree holders to 2.6 % by 2016; (2) improve Re-entry to employment rate for Degree & PMETs resident to above 55% by 2016. In additional, provide a detail statistical tables of EP/SP holders similar to “Labour Force in Singapore, 2014” (published by MOM in 2015), Table 24, 26, 29 & 38 .

Melvin Chen

TRS Contributor


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