Rise in employment of Singaporeans and PRs
January 30th, 2010 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
According to preliminary figures released by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the unemployment rate among residents, who include citizens and permanent residents, fell from 5 per cent last September to 3 per cent in December.
The new jobs created led to a net employment gain of 43,000 among locals for the whole of 2009.
The Straits Times put up a misleading headlines on its frontpage – “big gains in jobs, mostly for locals.”
However, as MOM did not give a breakdown of how many new jobs went to Singaporeans and PRs, there is a likelihood that PRs are the ones who benefit most from the “soaring” job market.
A differentiation must be made between Singapore citizens and PRs who are ultimately foreigners who may return to their native countries eventually.
Citizens are the ones who voted for the elected government of the day to take care of their interests. Jobs must go to them first and not PRs.
Furthermore, MOM said nothing about the underemployment rate which includes workers on contract jobs and those who have given up looking for a job.
MOM’s continued reluctance to publish the exact figures for the unemployment rates of citizens and PRs is baffling as lumping them together under the same category of “residents” or “locals” serve little purpose at all other perhaps than to mask the real extent of unemployment among citizens.
In other countries like the United States, foreigners and PRs are the first to be laid off in a recession.
In Singapore, it appears that PRs are still “contributing” to Singapore’s “resident” workforce.
Even as PAP leaders are reassuring Singaporeans that the inflow of foreigners will be moderated, the liberal immigration policies are still in effect.
Foreigners are still permitted to apply for a one year visit pass to seek employment in Singapore never mind the fact whether they are skilled or not. (read here)
There is also a Landed Permanent Residence scheme which gives a grant period of 2 years for applicants not yet working in Singapore to find employment in the country (read here)
For Hong Kongers, there is a special “approved-in-principle (AIP)” for Singapore PR which enables them to obtain Singapore PR without even stepping foot on Singapore!
The above examples illustrate that the fact that Singaporeans are still competing with foreigners directly for limited jobs available in the labor market.
The easy availability of foreigners also help to depress the wages of ordinary Singaporeans who found themselves at the mercy of employers.
Though the state media has been churning out daily propaganda to paint a rosy picture in the labor market, anecdoctal evidence suggests otherwise.
Singaporeans have to vote in more opposition MPs in Parliament to hold the Manpower Minister accountable.
Only then will we be able to know the truth – the exact unemployment rate for citizens which is probably higher than the figures quoted for “residents”.
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27 Responses to “Rise in employment of Singaporeans and PRs”
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yeah, the pigs are mobilizing the traditional media to con Singaporeans again.
According to Zao Bao, they used the words: Quan Min Jiu Ye!
100% employment! What a rosy picture! Singaporeans are all so happy!
Majority of the jobs are in the service sector which is the worst kind of jobs with the highest turn over. The majority of new jobs come from the casinos, which means it is only a one off increase. Not to mention the social cost we will have to pay for promoting the deadly sin called “gambling”, which leads to all sorts of problems including loan sharking.
http://news.omy.sg/News/Local%2BNews/Story/OMYStory201001300150-124284.html
我国去年第四季全民就业!
“100% employment!”
Such a a blatant lie of SinGov. May the Godstrike the Mer-LION’s head one more time and destroy it for good because it means the Kingdom of Kangaroo will be over soon.
MM still don’t understand that we all know 80 % of singapore citizens either un-employed , working as cleaners , sweepers , seeling insurance or driving taxis . These people have very good qualifications but yet the job sucks .
80 % of the citizens waiting for election day . we have enough of your stupid media and newspaper and polcies talking about many jobs avialable that it all LIES ..
PREPARE FOR YOUR EXIT ELSE WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT..NOT A CHOICE
“The new jobs created led to a net employment gain of 43,000 among locals for the whole of 2009.”
wow so many jobs ? 43,000 leh !!! so positive ? then y did some ministar need to waste his time during some dialog section talking about cleaner’s posts which singaporeans were too choosy to take leh.
Garman still bullshit about employment. Ask the to show CPF contribution to the public and see how much they collected . its down 60% due to poor jobs , jobless .
They also consider those about 45 retired if still jobless for 6 mths . see how the world class people do their maths .
PLEASE DON’T BELIVE IN THEIR MEDIA AND NEWSPAPER , WE ARE SO SICK WITH THE WAYANG MATHS ALREADY .
DID THEY PUBLISH GIC AND TEMASAL LOST HOW MUCH ? WHY EXACTLY WE NEED SO MANY FTS IN SINGAPORE ?? SICK MAN…THEY NEED TO BE VOTED OUT.
BOOMZ
We msut get rid of this die nasty and their cronies once and for all! They are they most despicable bastard that will do whatever means to deceive the people!!
phd and degree holders are driving taxi and become hawkers. 100% is very achievable.
For so long as MOM does not reveal the jobless for S’pore citizens, the statistic must be terrible. That is why MOM wants to hide it from public.
That is why PAP is flooding S’pore with PRs, so that they can lie with statistics (remember Residents = Citizens + PRs)
another possible reason for surge in local employment is job credit scheme which led to many foreigners converting to PR to prevent being laid off.
evidence:there was a long queue at SIR when job credit scheme was announced.
Even foreign students who DID NOT complete their private school course here are given PR within 2 years of living in Singapore. So the figures given by MOM lumping citizens and PRs are meaningless.
It is shocking that there are 1.05 million foreigners in our workforce (at least the Straits Times did not hid this figure).
But the decline of 4,200 in the last quarter represents only 0.4% of the foreign workforce.
It also meant that over the OCt-Dec period an average of only 1,400 foreigners lost their jobs each month. That is very small compared to the large number of unemployed Singaporeans who are still in the workforce or CONVENIENTLY EXCLUDED FROM THE WPORKFORCE CALCULATION BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN UNEMPLOYED FOR TOO LONG LAREADY!!!!! The trick of the MOM in compiling employment stats is that after a while an unemployed person is omitted from the unemployment stats.
How could a caring government sell our rights to a job to foreigners!!! What is the agenda behind all these.
What is important is a living income and not just employment with income that cannot support the individual or the family. So this statement is nebulous and meaningless just like the PAP statement on HDB affordability.
To the PAP Ministers and SPH, I have this to say: You can fool some of the people all the time, most of the people some of the time but not all the people all the time. The PAP and SPH propaganda machine has started. Soon, it will be in full motion. So beware.
BTY, would the PAP ministers accept employment of their current jobs with a 95% pay cut?
Just attended a career fair at Orchard. omygosh, really looked like united nations convention, pinoys, fRom india & what-have-yous. i even overheard one malaysian asking a recruiter how he can get employed with 7 years experience in malaysia as he only want to work in singapore. the recruiter say they don’t discriminate lOcal or foreigner. can’t imagine the near future…
Each day I feel increasingly betrayed by my own government, for letting in so many foreigners, particularly the China nationals. Everywhere I go, I can see bunches of them, this is definitely not the case in the 90s or early 2000s (The good old days). Why must the PAP betray us like this? Even when I did my internship at a local reputed finance company, there are also MANY PRCs holding positions that is considered relatively high-level and executive, a total opposite of what the bloody PAP said about foreigners coming here to do jobs Singaporeans shun.
Let us have some resolve to vote out this incorrigible government come late 2010 or 2011. The damage due to immigration has been done, but at least stop the fuckers from doing further damage. Singapore is no longer the Singapore I knew from young. Totally no more sense of identity.
I am not sure about fellow native Singaporeans.. I used to hold a middle management position in an MNC but have lost my job to a FT last June. And have since been looking for a similar job but to no avail. I believe I have contributed to the statistics for UNEMPLOYMENT. However, if I choose to work as a cleaner, a factory worker or IR customer service assistant now..I may jolly well add to what the govt claimed to be the statistics for “rising in employment”.
“big gains in jobs, mostly for locals.”
Given the loose undefined definition of “locals”, am I supposed to conclude that foreigners IN CONTRAST PERHAPS made “small gains in jobs” whoring in Geylang and Chinatown -to put it in perspective of the unspoken??
And adding to the pages of “glamorous” feature is some forgotten chapter of “history” pages which if they featured something on hot sex of same numerous pages might be of more entertaining read for me.
NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Strange… i’m not able to see MOM’s October 2009 employment statistics for comparison a on the absolute employment figures.
http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/press_room/press_releases/2009.html
As of last year , we should have record retirements . Those above 40 + and still cannot find jobs will automatically considered retired . we have 2 milllion citizens retired already . Next few years , those who are 30+ and still cannot get a decent job will be considered house-husbands . We are therefore fully employed every year .
~ Singaporeans comes first ”
~ You are never left behind ”
~ Next 50 years will be golden years ”
~ We need more FTs because singaporeans do not want to be cleaners even though they have diplomas , degrees , masters or PHD . they are so choosy”
With the ease of getting PR status, almost all foreigners are local in PAP definition. Those classified as foreigners are those with low skill but actually required by Singapore e.g. shipyard workers, construction workers, etc where there is no enough locals to fill up the position. The so called “local” foreigners like PR are those who are taking away the job from Singaporean!!!
All along the employment figures from MOM is misleading as ‘locals’ refer to both citizens and PRs. All these bashing on Singaporeans are unfair since there is no differentiation on citizens and PRs in statistics such as labour productivity etc.
Another important point about ‘choosy’ Singaporeans is that if the company advertise through employment agencies, then they will most likely only receive resumes from foreigners. This is because some agencies are run by foreigners which have a pool of their own exisiting workers to churn. This is especially so for outsourcing companies from India. They only put forward their own people. Also, agencies depend on commission and they usually put forward cheaper foreigners to secure the commissions.
If employers advertised directly, they will usually be able to receive better quality resumes from Singaporeans and non-Indian nationals. In the previous Casino IR hiring, we already found that if Casinos advertised directly instead of via agents, they DO get tremendous responses from many Singaporeans.
So if you are a hiring manager, you need to know this and not always blame Singaporeans, their resumes never reach you.
the Straits Times is the stupidest paper in the world
Its singaporeans, apathetic generally, who accepted this kind of system. Its still shocks me why singaporeans in general can live with not getting the answers. What shocks me more is the fact that majority do not even think or ask pertinent questions treating these as not their problem. How foolish can this be? So, as u can see, i am speechless when it comes to singaporean mentality. Of course, there is a minorit pool of citizens who can think. But the fact remains, the majority’s decision affects the minority.
The only consolation is wait for kookoo to wenk the bucket.
It would be one of the most interesting thing to watch how things go after that.
WAHHHHH can see that PAP is getting really desperate!
Don’t bullshit ok! My friend is still looking for a job! How to be Quan Ming Jiu Ye????