Singapore’s tough balancing act on immigration

• tranquilice

  27 Aug 10, 09:05

  26 August 2010 Last updated at 23:07 GMT

  By Mariko Oi Asia Business Report, BBC World, Singapore

  Overlooking Singapore's central business district, construction workers are busy building a new high-end restaurant on the rooftop park of Marina Bay Sands hotel.

  Located on the 57th floor, the SkyPark is the latest attraction that Singapore boasts.

  Despite the ongoing construction, the hotels and the casino downstairs are already open to the public.

  So visitors, whether or not they like it, get a glimpse at the driving force behind Singapore's construction boom: foreign workers.

  Jay Chiu, chief executive of Grandworks, employs 150 of them to work on projects across the city state.

  Jay Chiu: "Singaporeans are not willing to take on this type of job"

  "Our workers are from Malaysia, Bangladesh and China," he says.

  Others also come from India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Burma, the Philippines, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea and Taiwan.

  They are part of a huge army of 245,000 construction workers in Singapore.

  "In our industry, all the work is very tough. Singaporeans are not willing to take up this kind of job," Mr Chiu says.

  "So we have no choice but to rely on foreign workers to help us in our industry."

  They are also much cheaper to hire than Singaporeans.

  Immigration control

  However, the industry is facing a big challenge.  

  The government has reduced the annual intake of immigrant workers from 150,000 to 100,000.

  It has also raised levies on foreign workers to make it less attractive for companies to import labour.

  This means higher costs or not enough workers for Mr Chiu.

  "If we don't have enough manpower, it will slow down our whole work progress," he says.

  "We might need to pay more in order to get more skilled workers to work for us."

  "If the government controls the entry of foreign workers, how can we complete projects on time?"

  Foreign talent

  Singapore has also been trying to attract more foreign professionals.

  "Singapore's future rests on growing a deep pool of highly talented and entrepreneurial people," says the Economic Strategies Committee chaired by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugratnam.

  One of them, British project manager Duncan Craig, came to Singapore five years ago.

  "I decided to come here because Asia's economy was going off back then. Since then, Singapore in particular has been booming," he says.

  However, employment agent R. Narayanamohan says that the government is being increasingly selective of foreign professionals, too.

  "They are taking a more qualitative approach," he says.

  "Over the past year, a few visa applications have been rejected and the government asked for more information. When we went back to them with extra documents, we got them approved."

  "I think they want to check the background of the applicants more thoroughly."

  Growing complaints

  So why is the government restricting the entry of foreign workers?

  The issue, it seems, is political.

  Singapore's citizens have been complaining about the soaring number of immigrants.

  The country now has the highest proportion of them in Asia, as foreigners make up one third of the island's workforce of 3 million. It is a sharp jump from a mere 3% in 1970.

  "Without warning, the floodgates were opened to allow foreigners into the country indiscriminately," says an opinion piece on the popular online forum Temasek Review.

  "In the past, the foreigners [who were] given a permit to work in Singapore were either highly qualified or filled positions [which were] shunned by Singaporeans. They are now competing directly with them (Singaporeans) for limited jobs."

  The latest National Orientations of Singaporeans Survey, conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies, shows that more than six out of 10 Singaporeans believe that the government's immigration policy was weakening national unity.

  Dilemma

  It is a dilemma that the government faces.

  Singapore's birth rate of 9.9 per 1,000 people in 2009 is one of the lowest in the world.

  At the current rate, the population is expected to begin shrinking in 2020.

  However, ahead of the next general election, which the government must call by February 2012, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is keen to ease concerns of its citizens.

  He has addressed the issue on many occasions, including on the eve of Singapore's 45th National Day.

  "I understand Singaporeans' concerns about taking in so many foreign workers and immigrants," he says.

  "We will control the inflow, to ensure that it is not too fast, and not too large."

  "We will only bring in people who can contribute to Singapore and work harder to integrate them into our society."

  It is a likely hot topic when he addresses the nation in his National Day Rally speech, equivalent of the State of the Union in America, on August 29.

  But it's a tough balancing act.

  The government is well aware that it needs immigrant workers to continue its speculator economic growth.

  "We will develop and invest in our people, but we also need to reinforce the Singapore team with talent and numbers from abroad," Prime Minister Lee says.

  "We must make up for the shortage of Singaporean workers in our economy and the shortfall of babies in our population."

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11100813

   

• Mountain Dew

  27 Aug 10, 09:36

  You know what, my friends' churches are targetting the foreigners in Singapore for outreach.

  Nowadays,even if u go church u see many foreigners.

  China,vietnam,mynamar,Taiwan,indonesia,bangladesh,indian,sri lankas... ...

  I think churches are happy over the inflix of foreign talents.

• Mountain Dew

  27 Aug 10, 09:45

  Wow many people are unhappy with foreign talents. Our government is in deep soup now.

• webben

  28 Aug 10, 06:42

  The govt is so inconsistent on this issue.  One year they're practically handing out PRsto any Tom, Dick and Harry.  The next year they're rejecting PR renewals even for folks who own HDBs and cars (I've heard of such cases).  I know one lady who holds a PhD and works in bio-sciences, and has waited 8 months so far for her PR application.  Somebody who would add a huge amount of value to SG.  Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater to appease the masses before the next election.

• Terminator Hitman

  28 Aug 10, 07:07

  its too late for singapore.....pap can keep all those construction workers and china/india engineers who are using spore as stepping stone to migrating to canada or usa or wherever.

• SingaporeTyrannosaur

  28 Aug 10, 23:56

  It's a Catch 22 situation, of course Singaporeans are far more expensive to hire then foreigners given the higher cost of living and economic strata in Singapore. If you worked and spent so much to get a degree in Uni, as well as lost two economic years in NS, would you settle for a job that pays peanuts? The very nature of being a citizen in Singapore means you have to price yourself higher to have any basic standard of living. To try to compete on wages with foreigners is a losing prospect.

  On the other hand, foreigners do not have the same disadvantages that we have. Their spending power with their wages from Singapore currency is usually a lot higher, and they do not have to sustain a full life here in Singapore. They are here to work, less so to make a life.

  All this should be blatantly obvious to our economic planners, we could have focused on developing our local labour force for high-skill, and higher paid industries that is not so easily touched by the China giant instead of always complaining that Singaporeans are not willing to work for peanuts when they quite obviously, cannot.  

• SingaporeTyrannosaur

  28 Aug 10, 23:58

  So yeah it's going to be lose-lose for Singapore. The sudden reversal of FT policies for this elections is gonna annoy a lot of FTs, and I doubt it's going to assuage the annoyance that the locals already have over the past few years of super-pro FT policies.

  Everybody is going to lose in the end.

• Wmyongj

  29 Aug 10, 06:37

  Imagine if PRC will to adopt the same Singapore policy and allow Indian and Bangala into China agriculture and mining Industry, (that currently also face a shortage of 'workers', there would surely be riots and policity implication to its governments. Instead, they are trying to resolving it internally, including biting the bullet of raising the agriculture price and consolidation through farming copororatives.

  My point is your cannot bring in competition to the job market that cause the break and butter group of citizen to 'compete'  and 'lower their salary' with imports and cheap migrants. They came from low living standard countries and they are happy with returning to their kampong or villages after earning what consider to be a fortune from Singapore thus continue living a happy and 'rich' village life.

  Having living in a 2nd tier city in PRC and working with the poorest in PRC, their material desire and expectation of life is diff from ours. They dont need 5Cs and can live for 2 SGD a week on food what will cost 10 times more in Spore. Having take home 30K SGD is a rich forture for a office worker, who, like an Singaporean returning from a oversea assignment earning 300K in net salary, 

• Wmyongj

  29 Aug 10, 06:37

  Imagine if PRC will to adopt the same Singapore policy and allow Indian and Bangala into China agriculture and mining Industry, (that currently also face a shortage of 'workers', there would surely be riots and policity implication to its governments. Instead, they are trying to resolving it internally, including biting the bullet of raising the agriculture price and consolidation through farming copororatives.

  My point is your cannot bring in competition to the job market that cause the break and butter group of citizen to 'compete'  and 'lower their salary' with imports and cheap migrants. They came from low living standard countries and they are happy with returning to their kampong or villages after earning what consider to be a fortune from Singapore thus continue living a happy and 'rich' village life.

  Having living in a 2nd tier city in PRC and working with the poorest in PRC, their material desire and expectation of life is diff from ours. They dont need 5Cs and can live for 2 SGD a week on food what will cost 10 times more in Spore. Having take home 30K SGD is a rich forture for a office worker, who, like an Singaporean returning from a oversea assignment earning 300K in net salary, 

• Wmyongj

  29 Aug 10, 06:38

  Imagine if PRC will to adopt the same Singapore policy and allow Indian and Bangala into China agriculture and mining Industry, (that currently also face a shortage of 'workers', there would surely be riots and policity implication to its governments. Instead, they are trying to resolving it internally, including biting the bullet of raising the agriculture price and consolidation through farming copororatives.

  My point is your cannot bring in competition to the job market that cause the bread and butter group of citizen to 'compete'  and 'lower their salary' with imports and cheap migrants. They came from low living standard countries and they are happy with returning to their kampong or villages after earning what consider to be a fortune from Singapore thus continue living a happy and 'rich' village life.

  Having living in a 2nd tier city in PRC and working with the poorest in PRC, their material desire and expectation of life is diff from ours. They dont need 5Cs and can live for 2 SGD a week on food what will cost 10 times more in Spore. Having take home 30K SGD is a rich forture for a office worker, who, like an Singaporean returning from a oversea assignment earning 300K in net salary, 

• Wmyongj

  29 Aug 10, 06:39

  Imagine if PRC will to adopt the same Singapore policy and allow Indian and Bangala into China agriculture and mining Industry, (that currently also face a shortage of 'workers', there would surely be riots and policity implication to its governments. Instead, they are trying to resolving it internally, including biting the bullet of raising the agriculture price and consolidation through farming copororatives.

  My point is your cannot bring in competition to the job market that cause the bread and butter group of citizen to 'compete'  and 'lower their salary' with imports and cheap migrants. They came from low living standard countries and they are happy with returning to their kampong or villages after earning what consider to be a fortune from Singapore thus continue living a happy and 'rich' village life.

  Having living in a 2nd tier city in PRC and working with the poorest in PRC, their material desire and expectation of life is diff from ours. They dont need 5Cs and can live for 2 SGD a week on food what will cost 10 times more in Spore. Having take home 30K SGD is a rich forture for a office worker, who, like an Singaporean returning from a oversea assignment earning 300K in net salary, 

• charlize

  13 Sep 10, 19:17

  http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/09/why-do-we-need-6-5-million-people/

   

  People here, there and everywhere.