Saturday, May 3, 2008
foreigners is killing Sg
SINGAPORE: Instead of accusing foreign workers of taking jobs away from Singaporeans, one company said Singaporeans should be thankful that foreign workers are able to help the country's economy to grow.
This stance coincides with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's message in his May Day Rally speech on Thursday.
Chinese national Yu Ruo came to Singapore about seven years ago and found a job at manufacturing company, Makino Asia.
With a stable income, he was able to bring his wife to Singapore two years ago, and the couple applied for permanent residency last month.
"First of all, Makino Asia is one of the better known companies in the industry, so this attracted me to come to Singapore and settle here," said Yu.
About 15 percent of Makino Asia's 470 employees are foreign workers. Over the years, 30 percent of them have become permanent residents or Singapore citizens.
Unfortunately, not all Singaporeans welcome foreign workers with open arms.
"For the time being, foreigners are not allowed to work in this market," one Singaporean said.
"Yes, they (foreigners) are stealing our rice bowl. And most of them are using illegal means," another said.
Dr Moh Chong Tau, CEO of Makino Asia, said: "I do not agree. In fact, we should be thankful to them for creating more jobs for us... For jobs that are not taken up by Singaporeans, we get foreigners to occupy those vacancies in order to create more jobs."
He also said Singaporeans who feel their jobs are being taken away by foreigners are short-sighted.
"This group of people should not be fearful about losing low-end jobs to foreign workers. They should take the opportunity to acquire more skills and enhance their revenue and livelihood," he said.
Dr Moh believes Singaporeans should compete with advanced countries where the value of jobs is much higher, which means such jobs also command better wages.
- CNA/so
BUY MAKINO ASIA'S SHARES TODAY!!
i am sure they are going to get a lot of government deals soon. their stock price is going to rise faster than PM Lee rises to become a Brigadier General in the army.
"This group of people should not be fearful about losing low-end jobs to foreign workers. They should take the opportunity to acquire more skills and enhance their revenue and livelihood"
wow. what a standard answer our NTUC labor chief would say!!
there is over 200, 000 low-income Singaporean workers. lets take a case study:
how is a 50 year old dishwasher uncle afford THE SPARE CASH AND TIME to go for retraining?
1) he has overdue bills to pay, and the only hope is probably wait for government's WIS. may i ask what is the probability of him abandoning his low-pay job and go for training while the bills snowball?
2) lets say he only speaks mandarin and don't even know how to spell A to Z. can the training and course be conducted in Chinese for him?
hey CEO, talk is easy. your operation managers must hate you very much.
ok back to the China worker case. hey no, he is a PR now and might be turning singaporean citizen very soon. oh and maybe not the distant future, he might be moving to the US or Australia using his Singapore citizenship. i don't know about him, but a lot of these "new Singaporeans" are doing so.
as it seems, most Singaporeans-in-the-street are very unhappy with foreigners here. probably not the elites, like the CEOs of MNCs like Makino Asia i believe.
surprisingly, despite the large unhappiness, none of our "elected" MPs has raise this issue of overpopulating foreigners in our parliament.
aren't the "elected" MPs supposed to represent this particular group of Singaporeans?
clearly, not so.
perhaps they are afraid of offending PM Lee, who has already stated clearly that he is pro-foreigners in his May Day Speech.
anyway back to the point.
if Singaporeans can see that the influx of foreigners has directly resulted in a rise of employment and higher pay among Singaporeans, will there be an argument at all?
no, of course not.
since there're so many foreigners, can PM Lee answer:
1) why do we still have high unemployment rate up to 56% for Singaporeans aged between 55 to 60 years old? oh all above 60 are virtually unemployed hahah
2) why do Singaporeans constantly urged to keep their pay "competitive", or low to be blunt?
PM Lee and the elites are out of touch with the grounds.
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