the ministry of manpower isn't addressing the root cost of worsening job market.

the ministry of manpower isn't addressing the root cost of worsening job market. - Redpanda

the ministry of manpower isn't addressing the root cost of worsening job market.

The main problem is not enough companies want interns or fresh grads. Even at internship pay. our internship salary is a full time salary in the countries around the region. Quite a few companies are already slowly moving their operations out of sg or outsourcing them remotely as the cost of doing business here always it's benefits. But instead the solution is the govt wants these private companies to take our students but the govt will pay them instead with our taxpayers money? How strict will their measures we saw that it's not abused? Also how sustainable is this? Last time they had something like was covid so ok... Just temporary. Now leh? Is this just a blip too? Also is the govt admitting our "world class" education is not good enough now for a job? Do you need students already doing internship half year internships, some even doing half yeur internships every year during school holidays. Still not enough? Because we didn't have this problem before. Then what value is our uni courses? And our kids study so hard so long for what? We can no longer be dependant on sme, foreign companies and government agencies to create jobs for us. This has been said many times over the decades but the government needs to provide space and time fo local entrepreneur culture to develop and take hold without expecting short term returns. I am saying this having been in the media "boom" of the early 00s. The focus should be on entrepreneurship I schools and the ecosystem to have sustainable entrepreneurship mindset.(Not social enterprise taking advantage of hawkers) And the govt should not be the one leading the initiative. Let successful, retired entrepreneurs locally and from around the region spearhead it. And there shouldn't be a timeline or kpi every 10 years. But a permanent fixture of our culture. If we don't build our own entrepreneurship culture here we will always be at the mercy of foreign companies and their motivation is always profit. How many jobs can the government agencies create for local graduates? Even now a lot of this government jobs are contract basis with no full-time benefits.

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I mentioned some similar points in the other thread about the traineeship programme. Singapore need Singapore rooted MNCs to create quality jobs, we cannot rely on our unique selling points forever. We cannot compete on cheapness, on that front, we will lose instantly. We compete on quality. Quality English-speaking workforce. But nowadays, other countries in Asia are catching up. With just a fraction of our cost, the value proposition of our quality is limited. We also have another selling point, which is stability, good infrastructure, low taxation, and minimised bureaucracy. This is something that others in the region lack, which makes us more alluring despite our workers being not cost effective (for the same level of quality). But that selling point has a problem. It’s a “race to the bottom” selling point, which means we are often stuck with it, especially the part about taxation or policies. However, think of it this way, what does a city do, what is its role? A city taps upon the surrounding rural and less developed areas, make them dependent on its services, and prosper by providing them. In fact, that is exactly what we are doing now with the hub model. We are the hub for SEA and even APAC. But, by relying on foreign MNCs, our hub status is always at risk. We are not a “natural” hub, that status is not a given inalienable right. It is a privilege our prior generations earned, by exploiting our favourable position. Just look at Hong Kong, a hub status can be lost when conditions change. So what if a city has a good position, rivals can still arise and geopolitical changes can ruin it. What we need are locally rooted MNCs, founded by ambitious entrepreuneurs rather than greedy middlemen and rent seekers (typical SMC mindset). We need more of the likes of Grab and Shopee, whose founders aren’t even pure bred Singaporeans! You might ask, why does it matter if a MNC is rooted? Well, if a firm is here out of convenience, they can uproot just as easily and move their hubs to our future competitors, cementing our decline. Although a locally rooted firm can still outsource parts of its workforce, it can’t outsource them all without changing where it is based in. Even then, companies are still often reluctant to abandon their original home entirely (e.g., Dyson moved its global HQ to SG, but still retained many jobs in its original home in the UK). Singapore is a small city and our region is huge. Our firms do not need to monopolise the market for the region, we just need to extract a bit of their prosperity, and that can create many quality jobs for Singaporeans. If we depend on foreign firms, we are beholden to them, forever limited in what we can do to address our challenges. If we have our own strong firms, being capital owners instead of just labour providers, our country has a stronger position to make necessary policy changes when times are difficult. Two cities in Michigan, US, illustrate the difference being the home of owners and labour providers. Flint, once a large automobile manufacturing city, is today a sad miserable “slum”. Detroit, the home to many large American automobile companies, survived. Although changes in economic conditions have hurt both cities, the one that was just a labour provider suffered most, as they lost their attractiveness and jobs pulled out, and was left with nothing. 66% of nominal value added is attributed to foreign MNCs, who only account for 33% of employment. This means on average, a MNC employee is 4 times as productive as a SME employee. Obviously, good jobs comes from MNCs, not SMEs. And as I had already mentioned, it’s not sufficient to just attract foreign MNCs, we need to build our own. Singapore needs to be the economic leader of SEA, not just the favoured “employee”. The government need to encourage entrepreuneurs, not just any businessmen. We don’t need more bosses with SME boss mindsets, forever limited to Singapore, because they cannot compete outside of Singapore’s cosy environment. And SMEs are not sufficient, because our market is too small. Personally, I don’t think we can afford to continue with the mindless pro-business mindset that allows some SMEs to be complacent, since the big boss (government) will bend backwards to shelter them. Some of them really should make away. Some SMEs will never grow beyond SG, because they are too addicted to the clutch the government gave them. Too sheltered and pampered.

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