Tuesday, July 17, 2012

A Worrying Speech

On the news today is a speech given by Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen in which he stated that the Singapore government need to strike a balance between economic growth and inflow of foreigners. Mr. Ng also said that such a balance is based on what Singaporeans are willing to support, because if Singapore tighten too much, the jobs of Singaporeans will be at risk.

Not for the first time, the Singapore government see the forest but missed the trees. The main problem Singaporeans have with foreigners is the fact that the jobs of Singaporeans ARE being affected by the number of foreigners in Singapore. Singapore has one of highest rate of foreign influx per capita in the world and its an open secret that Singaporeans above the age of 40 are being squeezed out of the labor market by the influx of cheap young foreign labor.

And what’s all this talk about "balance"? Since when has there ever been "balance" in Singapore's foreign influx policy? 1 in 4 people in Singapore is a foreigner (some say 1 in 3) so it’s a little late for the government to speak about “balance” now.

The speech by Mr. Ng was nice but all it did was once again emphasis the fact that the Singapore government just does not understand the reason behind why Singaporeans are now so against foreigners! Now I find that worrying.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hullo, where have you been? 1 in 3 pple in spore is a foreigner. in fact, it is actually just a whisker shy of 2 in 5 is a foreigner.

this is if you do not count tourists as being part of those "in" spore. if you do, going by the latest tourist arrival figs, 1 in 2 pple in spore is a foreigner!!!

Ghost said...

Where you get that figure? Can you post a link please? The latest I got was 1 in 3 so I would like to know if I missed one. Thanks

Anonymous said...

cant give you a link, sorry, but there was a piece on how the no of foreigners had risen 0.8% last year from 37.2% in 2010. the other piece was on how no of tourist arrivals has gone up. cant recall if it was in 1st or second quarter, but it worked out to about 1.2million tourists a month. read about these figs in the last few days. if i come across them again in my surfing, will post here.

Anonymous said...

ok, have a look at these links:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/15/stocksnews-singapore-singaporetourism-idUSL3E8HF17520120615

http://www.tremeritus.com/2012/07/13/when-is-pap-going-to-freeze-foreign-population-growth/

Ghost said...

I don' think it's right to count tourists as part of the people of Singapore. Most stay only for a few days so the stats will be skewed if we add them. Thanks for the link.

Anonymous said...

i don't count tourists as part of the people Of singapore, but part of the number of people In singapore. this includes family of PRs and other foreigners, people on social visit passes.

after all, don't they use public transport? don't they eat at eateries? don't medical tourists and sick tourists occupy hospital beds? aren't they in our shopping malls, looking and buying? don't they walk the streets? don't they litter? don't they take cabs? aren't they some of the foreign faces you pass every day?

1.2 million are not exactly invisible, you know. neither do they leave no footprint.

are you trying to tell me that when one plans for the ridership of a train and bus, one should not consider that tourists will probably take both forms of transport to get around? not all are shepherded around in a herd on a tourist bus.