Netizen says fresh grads are picky for a reason amid ‘uneven and selective’ job market

SINGAPORE: Pushback from some Singaporeans online surfaced after The Straits Times‘ article “The Great Graduate Divide: Why the Job Hunt Is a Struggle for Some Fresh Graduates” examined the current state of the city-state’s job market, explaining that jobs are available but not necessarily in sectors “selective” fresh graduates want to join.

The article cited manpower consultancy Elitez Group chief executive Derrick Teo, who said the market remains “active” but is more “uneven and selective” than it was two or three years ago.

He said: “The issue is not that there are no jobs. It is that there is a mismatch between where graduates want to work, where employers are hiring, and the skills employers now expect from fresh graduates.”

Citing Ministry of Manpower (MOM) data, the article noted that Singapore has enough entry-level professional, managerial, executive and technician (PMET) jobs for new graduates.

The issue is that many of these entry-level vacancies are concentrated in sectors such as public administration and education (5,400), construction (4,900), manufacturing (4,000), health and social services (3,000), professional services (2,600), transportation and storage (2,400), administrative and support services (1,800), and food and beverage services (1,700), rather than in highly sought-after industries such as financial and insurance services (1,700) and information and communications (1,200).

At the same time, graduates expected higher salaries than the actual median pay, while low pay was a major reason for rejecting job offers.

For some readers, however, the more important question was not whether graduates were being selective or had higher salary expectations, but why they were making those choices in the first place.

One commenter said, “Have they stopped to consider why are our fresh grads picky to begin with? Have they seen housing prices lately and asked themselves why fresh grads will never degrade themselves into accepting a lowball offer of S$2.3K/month? Do they not realise that this insults their aspirations to own a home and raise a family in Singapore?”

Another commenter, referring to other commenters’ claims that industries such as audit and social work are always hiring, said: “So is [it] our fault for being ‘picky’? [The] issue is a lot of Singaporeans, especially those with years of experience there, warned grads not to enter because it’s much more horrible compared to other sectors. Instead of trying to improve the working conditions in these industries, grads got called out for being weak instead lol.” /TISG

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