An unemployed single mother laments that it is difficult to compete with foreign workers for jobs in Singapore as most of them can work longer for less while Singaporeans simultaneously struggle to achieve a work-life balance and grapple with rising living costs.
Rose, mother to a seven-year-old son, had been working as a receptionist-cum-administrator when she suddenly lost her job due to company re-structuring. Having been unemployed for over six months, Rose depends on her savings to survive while she seeks a new job.
In an interview with unemployement support website transitioning.org, Rose says that it is more difficult to make ends meeet in Singapore today due to high living costs and foreign competition. She explains:
“Most foreigners come here to work and leaving families behind in their countries and thus they have the upper hand as they are able to work longer hour, shift and weekend kind of job.
“Unlike locals after work, we need to juggle and balance work and home life. Locals need to pay more expenses to make sure that their children and old folks are well taken care of.
How can we compete with foreigners who have more time at work and no families to take care of over here? Moreover, no matter how much we can sting (sic) on, we have not much savings left by the end of the month since cost of living is so high.
“Why do the foreigners looks down upon our lower/middle income working class? Because they can work full-force and able to buy house and cars back in their own country after their time is up working here. We can work our a!@ off but still we can only upkeep expenses but without much savings for old age.”
Rose suggests that the Government implement “minimum salary, invest in child development and [offer] more scholarships to locals” to help Singaporeans. On her advice to jobless folks, Rose says:
“…just find a job that one can manage and work till death. Concentrate and build up our own child’s dream and jolly well give up ours at the same time.”
transitioning.org is a non-profit website that provides emotional support for the unemployed and under-employed in Singapore. If you have an opening for an administrator, please get in touch with the website HERE so they could forward Rose’s resume to you.