LKY say we need more foreigners

[Albeniz]

It is real talent that we need in this country, and we welcome real talents.

 

Not all foreigners are talents. They open the floodgate wide and did not do a good job during the screening process.

Look at our local university, there are so many foreign PhD students and research personnel who speak and write English as though they had not passed the primary school English exams. It is so embarrassing. Do I have to specifically mention where do they come from?

[Cwong2910]

Singapore needs to go through a period of consolidation to weed out the inefficient and low end companies fighting based on low labour cost alone.

There are simply too many companies offering duplicate services and products.

 

Just goto www.thegreenbook.com and search for any service.

You will end up with more than 30 results.

e.g. Lorry Transport Services

http://www.thegreenbook.com/products/lorry...nsport-service/

 

Does Singapore really need 554 companies providing lorry transport service?

 

If the low end companies do not hog on to labour, this pool can be freed up to the more value add industries.

 

The labour intensive low end industries need some government intervention to clamp down on the numbers of such companies.

Else using free market forces, it will affect Singapore as a whole.

 

 

[Fcw75]

We need FW, not those FT. Do not confused the two.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2012 by Fcw75

[Fcw75]

Anyway, our population now is 5.31M! Rock on!

Edited September 29, 2012 by Fcw75

[Albeniz]

Your post is a bit contradicting. If your company cannot find locals to fill the positions and most are filled by foreigners.Your company sounds like a typical "whiny"company. If I set up a factory in Singapore and offers wages that even the Msians and PRC do not want, then ,y wage structure is exploitative. If I want to set up a factory in Germany, Japan and Korea and has a wage structure that the locals and worse still even the lower cost neighbouring country refuse to take up to the point I need to ship in cheap labour halfway across the glob to survive, I have no business setting a factory up in these countries.

 

If your company goes, most of the jobs lost would be positions that cannot be filled by locals right? So how many locals would be affected? Only the Management/Executives who are responsible for the poor productivity and exploitative HR policies? I would not feel too sorry if they lose their jobs.

 

Yeah, you are right. this type of companies do not add value to the country and should really consider setting up in places they deem cheap, if cheap labour is what they are looking for in the very first place.

 

[Baphomet]

Anyway, our population now is 5.31M! Rock on!

 

 

and nearly 40% are foreigners. I feel so at home!

Edited September 29, 2012 by Baphomet

[Zanter]

Ask your boss pay more, sure many people will wanna work. If pay so little, how to survive in singapore? People dishwasher also pay $3k a month, how much your company willing to pay to recruit locals? If he think its cheaper to reset and restart in malaysia, then just go ahead. If malaysian also dont wanna work because of low pay, what makes him think he open in malaysia, he can get staff?

 

Labor cost is one issue, other issues are land cost, energy cost, water cost. The margin for our products is low like 5-10% so we need to sell in huge volumes to cover our overheads. In Malaysia all these cost are lower, even management cost like execs. They are less efficient true but catching up and because of difficulty in getting the factory workers in Sg, the longer term plan is to move our plant to Malaysia and decommission here.

 

We pay the locals who are supervisors, sales personnel and execs who are mostly locals higher like 2.5-3k up to 6k and we pay our factory personnel like 2k with overtime. Now out of our staff of 600+ the foreigners are like 100+ , these people are prepared to work overtime and bear the heat/shift work to generate income for our 500+ locals who have families to support. Now the latest MOM restrictions are having an impact because of current sentiment, Its not that we are not prepared to pay 3k for local but really the Singaporeans are not prepared to do the shift work to keep our factory running 24 hours.

 

So its easy to say ok your industry is not competitive so we should move out how about the 500+ locals who will lose their jobs? So there is another part of the equation which you may not be aware.

 

[Atonchia]

and nearly 40% are foreigners. I feel so at home!

 

So the 700,000 will come from those 2.57mil millionaires of Asia Pac area?

Get more ultra rich and labourers?

Minus off the middle group?

[Jim]

Sigh, the people are asking for the flooding to stop, and the government responds by saying we will all die of thirst without water.

 

Just because we are anti-flooding does not mean we are anti-water.

 

There are a lot of components to the immigration problem, and a large part is government controlled.

 

For example, housing. If the plot ratio of all new projects are doubled, ie, buildings double in the number of storeys, the housing problem will be solved without using any extra land. But of course, the risk is property price will crash and kill the banks and developers in the process. The government is even more afraid of that. So the government lets the housing problem persist.

 

Transport-wise, it's the same thing. We are see the government gives all sorts of wrong incentives to SBS and SMRT, misplacing their priorities, resulting in an old crumbling infrastructure that cannot keep up with population growth. They should have spent 1 billion buying new buses as early as the Nicoll Highway collapse, or at least no later than 2007, when the transport problem started to bite.

 

Instead, the government continues to operate thinking everything is hunky dory and the only feedback they can actually hear is the polling box. If you saw the "National Conversation" on TV, you can see why. I wonder how much real feedback actually reaches the PM.

 

A national conversation with the general population is really just a conversation with PAP grassroot leaders.

 

No wonder he only hears what he wants to hear.

 

Oh, and lastly but very importantly, we have a proper structure regulating levy attracting foreign workers, and few of them are genuinely competing with Singaporeans. Levy attracting foreign workers do not buy cars or flats. They dont have kids here. They dont drive up a lot of costs of living. In fact, they reduce it.

 

It is the EP level foreign "talents" who will buy flats/condos and cars. This is the strata that expanded the most since 2007. They dont contribute CPF and does not attract levy.

 

All I ask of the government is to level the playing field, impose CPF on all EP holders and PRs, plus a system to equalise NS obligations of Singaporeans. With this added costs, we will know which companies are genuinely hiring foreigners for their talent, and which ones go for foreigners because they are cheaper than Singaporeans, and I suspect, the immigration problem will solve itself without any other "tightening".

 

I believe Singaporeans are brought up competitive. We just need a fair rules to compete.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Jim

[Jasonvios]

Labor cost is one issue, other issues are land cost, energy cost, water cost. The margin for our products is low like 5-10% so we need to sell in huge volumes to cover our overheads. In Malaysia all these cost are lower, even management cost like execs. They are less efficient true but catching up and because of difficulty in getting the factory workers in Sg, the longer term plan is to move our plant to Malaysia and decommission here.

 

We pay the locals who are supervisors, sales personnel and execs who are mostly locals higher like 2.5-3k up to 6k and we pay our factory personnel like 2k with overtime. Now out of our staff of 600+ the foreigners are like 100+ , these people are prepared to work overtime and bear the heat/shift work to generate income for our 500+ locals who have families to support. Now the latest MOM restrictions are having an impact because of current sentiment, Its not that we are not prepared to pay 3k for local but really the Singaporeans are not prepared to do the shift work to keep our factory running 24 hours.

 

So its easy to say ok your industry is not competitive so we should move out how about the 500+ locals who will lose their jobs? So there is another part of the equation which you may not be aware.

 

Is your company in manufacturing, then your boss should seriously consider moving the factory elsewhere and keep only sales, admin and logistics in Singapore. In 1989, when LKY was still the PM, supporting industries are encouraged to move out under the Growth Triangle. If Singapore has not make the move that time, the disk drive industry would have probably wipe out overnight in mid 90s due to cost.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia%E2%...Growth_Triangle

 

I think we have to thank the foresight of our leaders at that time. It is kind of strange that after 20 years, now we want to keep everything in Singapore so that we have a good report card (GDP) for the world to see.

[Brendon1980]

Go Changi Business Park and you will know why so many people are against FT, not FW.

 

There are people here already say, if your company need to employ cheap FT in order to survive, I think close down better since jobs are going to FT, it doesn't benefit any locals at all, only fatten boss wallet.

 

Good point. The problem here is curbing FTs and allowing only good talents to come thru. Most are confuse between FT and FW.

If the aim is to allow companies to drive up revenue at singaporeans' expense then think long term, can the company itself sustain?

 

[Wishxsr]

We need FW, not those FT. Do not confused the two.

 

 

No la. Be straight forward.Should say the govt need $ , especially to cover the hugh lost in investment by TU MA SICK.

[Albeniz]

Sigh, the people are asking for the flooding to stop, and the government responds by saying we will all die of thirst without water.

 

Just because we are anti-flooding does not mean we are anti-water.

 

There are a lot of components to the immigration problem, and a large part is government controlled.

 

For example, housing. If the plot ratio of all new projects are doubled, ie, buildings double in the number of storeys, the housing problem will be solved without using any extra land. But of course, the risk is property price will crash and kill the banks and developers in the process. The government is even more afraid of that. So the government lets the housing problem persist.

 

Transport-wise, it's the same thing. We are see the government gives all sorts of wrong incentives to SBS and SMRT, misplacing their priorities, resulting in an old crumbling infrastructure that cannot keep up with population growth. They should have spent 1 billion buying new buses as early as the Nicoll Highway collapse, or at least no later than 2007, when the transport problem started to bite.

 

Instead, the government continues to operate thinking everything is hunky dory and the only feedback they can actually hear is the polling box. If you saw the "National Conversation" on TV, you can see why. I wonder how much real feedback actually reaches the PM.

 

A national conversation with the general population is really just a conversation with PAP grassroot leaders.

 

No wonder he only hears what he wants to hear.

 

Oh, and lastly but very importantly, we have a proper structure regulating levy attracting foreign workers, and few of them are genuinely competing with Singaporeans. Levy attracting foreign workers do not buy cars or flats. They dont have kids here. They dont drive up a lot of costs of living. In fact, they reduce it.

 

It is the EP level foreign "talents" who will buy flats/condos and cars. This is the strata that expanded the most since 2007. They dont contribute CPF and does not attract levy.

 

All I ask of the government is to level the playing field, impose CPF on all EP holders and PRs, plus a system to equalise NS obligations of Singaporeans. With this added costs, we will know which companies are genuinely hiring foreigners for their talent, and which ones go for foreigners because they are cheaper than Singaporeans, and I suspect, the immigration problem will solve itself without any other "tightening".

 

I believe Singaporeans are brought up competitive. We just need a fair rules to compete.

 

well-said, Jim.

[Se3h3ng]

latest population figures are out : 5,312,400 of which 3,818,200 are residents

 

http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/pe.../hist/popn.html

 

 

out of 3,818,200... there's still alot of PR involves and the trend is that once they earn enough $$, they will move back to where they come from...

[Albeniz]

Economy is currently doing badly and full of uncertainties. Companies are now freezing headcounts, down-sizing and not hiring. Are there really that many vacancies here for foreigners to fill?

[Enye]

Economy is currently doing badly and full of uncertainties. Companies are now freezing headcounts, down-sizing and not hiring. Are there really that many vacancies here for foreigners to fill?

 

cut costs

 

replace higher income singaporeans with cheaper FT

 

[Nightkids]

Is your company in manufacturing, then your boss should seriously consider moving the factory elsewhere and keep only sales, admin and logistics in Singapore. In 1989, when LKY was still the PM, supporting industries are encouraged to move out under the Growth Triangle. If Singapore has not make the move that time, the disk drive industry would have probably wipe out overnight in mid 90s due to cost.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia%E2%...Growth_Triangle

 

I think we have to thank the foresight of our leaders at that time. It is kind of strange that after 20 years, now we want to keep everything in Singapore so that we have a good report card (GDP) for the world to see.

 

 

That time ah lao zha fit mah.......now this xiao-lian-eh buay gan...... ever since he took over, nothing he has done is right......

Edited September 29, 2012 by Nightkids

[Seanboi]

That time ah lao zha fit mah.......now this xiao-lian-eh buay gan...... ever since he took over, nothing he has done is right......

 

There's one thing he did right. He apologised.

 

At the end of the day... wayang.