Pointing to the Ministry of Manpower’s report on employment growth as reported in a local media, statistician and socio-political commentator, Leong Sze Hian, asked if the numbers meant that 99.7 percent of job growth went to foreigners.
The broadsheet reported:
“Just 31,800 more people here were employed at the end of last year – the lowest annual growth since 2003 – although unemployment remained low. Citizens and permanent residents made up 100 of these, with the bulk of the growth coming from the foreign workforce.”
As permanent residents are foreigners, Mr Leong also asked how many of the 100 jobs actually went to citizens.
He feels that there may be something very wrong with Singapore’s labour policies if Singaporeans got less than 0.3 per cent of the jobs growth.
Referring to the report saying the slower employment growth happened “amidst sluggish global economic conditions and slower growth of the Singapore economy, and tightened supply of foreign manpower”, the statistician questioned how tightened supply of foreign manpower would result in almost all of the jobs growth going to non-Singaporeans.
He further queried how many among the “total of 14,400 workers” who lost their jobs last year were Singaporeans.