Singapore — Speaking at the Progress Singapore Party’s Beyond the Jobs Debate Forum, former GIC Chief Economist, Yeoh Lam Keong said that one reason why Singapore has its current problem with jobs is the ‘excessive immigration’ that occurred between 1990 and 2010.
The volume of skilled workers allowed to enter Singapore in these years caused a dependence on lower-paid PMET (Professional, Manager, Executive & Technician) workers as well as a dampening of the desire among Singaporeans to pursue careers in certain industries.
“We have become addicted to large quantities of S-Pass workers, and we do not produce enough of our own engineers. It’s become a vicious cycle. This is the current situation we’re found ourselves in,” said Mr Yeoh, who is also an adjunct professor at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore.
The aim of the forum, which was held on Sunday (Oct 17), was to discuss the “very urgent plight of PMETs” and to be able to present constructive recommendations to the government in order to improve the situation, said PSP Secretary-General Francis Yuen.
Mr Yuen underlined the possibility of the “hollowing out of Singaporean core” if the situation continues.
“Future generations of Singaporean PMETs may not be able to participate in these industries,” he added, noting that the forum is not about xenophobia “but about the fact that Singapore’s economy requires a balanced workforce.”
He acknowledged that Singapore will always need foreign talent and that they should be integrated into society, but “we want young and maturing Singaporean PMETs to be given opportunities so that our core can be strengthened.”
Mr Yeoh, who spoke first, agreed with Mr Yuen, saying, “It’s important for us to go beyond CECA and to go to the core issues of PMET prospects and PMET progress, and hopefully, prosperity.
These are the key issues, rather than the narrow issue of CECA.”
He emphasised that he is non-partisan and is approaching the issue as an economist, going on to discuss the history of the problem as well as possible short, medium, and long-term solutions.
Mr Yeoh pointed to “20 years of the worst policy errors—excessive immigration between 1990 and 2010.”
At this time, many unskilled and semi-skilled were allowed to enter the country, which caused depressed wages.
“The working poor is the heritage of this policy,” he said.
As for PMETs, by the 2000s, there was “a huge amount of S-Pass workers and PRs.”
He called this a “problem of scale and problem of quality.”
There were 80,000 PRs alone each year at the peak of this period, compared to an annual school cohort of 40-50,000, or almost twice the number.
In comparison, the United States, which he says is known to let in high-quality foreign skilled workers, only allowed 4 to 5 per cent of the school-going cohort.
Singapore let in professional workers at a rate that has not been seen outside the OECD except in Dubai, where the growth of professional classes was stultified, he added.
These “mistaken policies” were going for growth instead of quality, as the workers had sub-par qualifications and less experience.
“What they had going for them is that they were cheaper,” he said.
The cumulative impact on many key sectors—engineering, computer science, particularly, was “dampening wages for entry-level PMETs” so that Singaporeans had no motivation to take up careers in engineering and computer science for quite a period of time.
By the 2010s and even up to fairly recently, engineering has been seen as a last resort. People have thought it is not worth the while to invest in an engineering education when their career prospects were dragged down by the excess of so-called skilled employment
As for solutions to the issue, he included a suggestion from Mr Ravi Menon, the Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, of gradually scaling up the quality and salaries of skilled workers.
This would raise the quality of foreign imports and motivate firms to hire Singaporeans and would also inspire more Singaporeans to become PMETs.
But correcting the problem begins with a “rigorous control of immigration policy,” he underlined.
He also urged that more mature PMETs be looked after in better ways, including providing unemployment insurance of around three to six months. This would give older workers time to look for jobs suited to their experience and not waste time merely jumping to the next job, such as becoming Grab drivers or taking part in the informal economy.
If serious training is needed for these workers, this period of support could be made even longer, just as it has in Scandinavian countries, he said.
And for longer-term measures, his suggestions included better support systems for SMEs (small and medium enterprises). /TISG
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