Singapore Expats

Interesting article Monday on manpower tightening on Asia One, that actually dared to be pretty critical of the gahmen. Would post the link but that seems to cause problems?

This place is cracking.

It's the comments that are really, um, interesting. Such complete and utter ignorance of the big wide world. I wonder about the future here...the attitude seems to be "just piss off MNCs, if you don't like it here." Ok then...good luck SP...be careful what you wish for.

They lodged a complaint against this site on grounds of copyright infringement (being familiar with copyrights, I think it's b******).

Anyway, keywords please? So we can search for said article. Does it start with "Has Singapore Gone Too Far"? Because that's what I found.

EDIT: Just finished reading the piece. Much talk about competitiveness, quality of doing business in Singapore, blah, blah, blah. But I think the elephant in the room is that they can get cheap, quality labor from the region to work in high-quality environment in Singapore. If Singapore raises the standard and people get high salaries, I don't know if MNCs will still see Singapore that a viable option for setting up shop (re: we get professionals for fraction of the price we'll get them in first-world countries!).

Its gonna be an interesting couple of years thats for sure.

Like you say, folk should be careful what they wish for.

Google "Has Singapore gone too far in tightening tap on foreign manpower"

Interesting read, typical comments

Same article the Nak referred to.

yes, he edited after I posted!

nutnut wrote:Google "Has Singapore gone too far in tightening tap on foreign manpower"

Interesting read, typical comments

That's the one.

the last 1/4 of the piece goes against the "gone too far" stand though...

From asia-one?

And if MNCs leave Singapore or move their operations elsewhere, the consequences will not be confined to their direct employees. MNCs employ less than a third of Singapore's workforce.

What if MNCs drain SCs?

"I don't think we necessarily need to be overly concerned," says Credit Suisse's Mr Wan. "Singapore is still pretty attractive as a hub."

Hmmm . . .

v4jr4 wrote:From asia-one?

And if MNCs leave Singapore or move their operations elsewhere, the consequences will not be confined to their direct employees. MNCs employ less than a third of Singapore's workforce.

What if MNCs drain SCs?

If MNCs did that, I think they'll just hire locally (re: Malaysians) or from other countries aside from Singapore which will cost less. If they'll take the Singaporeans as well, it'll have to be a pretty sweet deal for the Singaporeans to bite and I have my doubts they will--MNCs offering attractive expat packages or SCs taking what will be offered.

Yes, but by chopping off the non-SCs, soon MNCs will have two options left: leave, or stay and drain SCs. If they choose to leave:

"Singapore is still pretty attractive as a hub."

What Singapore can do to stay attractive, he says, is to "keep the tax rates low, have good infrastructure, and educate people and equip them with the right skills to stay competitive".

Can Hong-Kong or Malaysia do that?

I think they already are, as is the Philippines. Entirely anecdotal but I was at a luncheon today and chatted with a guy who owns a manufacturing biz here. He's putting steps in place to move ops out of sp next year. Sad thing is he does employ a number of skilled locals it's a high tech sort of thing.

nakatago wrote:

v4jr4 wrote:From asia-one?

And if MNCs leave Singapore or move their operations elsewhere, the consequences will not be confined to their direct employees. MNCs employ less than a third of Singapore's workforce.

What if MNCs drain SCs?

If MNCs did that, I think they'll just hire locally (re: Malaysians) or from other countries aside from Singapore which will cost less. If they'll take the Singaporeans as well, it'll have to be a pretty sweet deal for the Singaporeans to bite and I have my doubts they will--MNCs offering attractive expat packages or SCs taking what will be offered.

A third of the work force is an awful lot. And these tend to be the better paying jobs for locals I think. If the mncs start leaving this place is $&ed.

A lot of the rest of the work force supplies goods and services to the MNC's. If they can't get the labor they need at a competitive rate, they cannot supply the MNC"s, and in they MNC's cannot get what they want they will go elsewhere.

movingtospore wrote:I think they already are, as is the Philippines. Entirely anecdotal but I was at a luncheon today and chatted with a guy who owns a manufacturing biz here. He's putting steps in place to move ops out of sp next year. Sad thing is he does employ a number of skilled locals it's a high tech sort of thing.

I'm not too sure about the tax rate in Philippines, but from what I heard, the infrastructure is not as good as Singapore.