Lets me take a look on this FTs issues using my own opinion. There is no other way for Singapore to be Economically competitive without additional manpower. Since our birth rate has hit all new lows, it only made sense to recruit more FTs to fill the gaps. Citizen were fuming as the number of FTs increased greatly over the past decade. To me, I largely support the FTs coming in due to a lot of reasons.
The FTs had been helping us to build our economy from the bottom and up till we become a first world country. We sahll (sic) never dismissed (sic) them as irrelevat (sic) in our society. For example, in the employment sector, citizen are complaining that FTs are stealing their jobs away. I do not think so. If One is to walk around the shopping malls before the opening hours, the person can see a lot of job vacancies available. Most of them are of course form the retail and food and beverage sector. There are plenty to go around but there are no takers. FTs are not allowed to be hired due to the tighter working regulations that require a certain quota limits. Instead this business must rely on hiring citizen before they can increase their FT quota. The goverment introduce this measure just recently. Is it doing good for the companies that are already struggling to hire Singaporeans? No. It is hurting the small companies badly.
The service industry which comprises of Retail, F&B and Hospitality are the hardest hit because citizen shun this job as these sector requires the employee to work on weekends, public holidays, to do overtime and rotating shifts. Moreover, the pressure to deal with the customer is the huge bug bear. The pay is just mearge and it does not appeal to the younger generations as about half of the cohort has at least a degree qualification. Those that are willing wants to work in the managerial positions. This cause wide shortages of service workers in the sector. So there is a real need to hire FTs to fill up the jobs. The businesses that are seeing red might fold over if this quota are still present.
It is not possible to replace a service worker like the Sales assistants, cashiers, cooks and waiters with technology solely. This sectors needs a human to support it. Until there is a time when robots can start cooking and serving customers as good as human, we still need FTs to cover the shortages. Another sector that is experiencing a hiring crunch is the Transport sector. There are many job opening but it does not generally appeal to the younger people due to the same reasons. We cannot replace drivers with robots so Fts are still needed here.
The cleaning industry too need them. Even when our senior worker are putting in their part there are simply not enough to cover the gap. The construction and the Marine sectors are mostly made up with FTs since this jobs are both dangerous and tough for Singaporeans to handle. What I had just mentioned are blue collars jobs. A job that needs semi skilled and unskilled labour.
In the white collar job; this is where the real competitions start. If one were to go to the CBD, you may see people from a myriad of nationalities. They are skilled labour. In fact they are more skilled than the new graduates. They usually do high end jobs that Singaporean themselves are unable to fill. This are usually the managerail jobs in large MNCs. We cannot deny them from coming here as MNCs has a habit of bringing their people to manage their overseas post. We can look at the international brands helmed by FTs. They still run as good as they did. The wealth of experience that these FTs have are in severe shortages. Managing an MNCs is tougher than a mom and pop shop. Even DBS hired hired an experience FT from citibank due to his good track record. The bank is doing well right now as he did some shake up of the whole system to make it more productive.Hence a FT with good skills should be welcome.
The singaporeans that are unhappy is fighting for the limited professional and executives jobs. As singapore churns out thousand of graduates each year, the MNCs in singapore economy cannot really take all of them. Hence when faced with a better FTs graduate, the favor towards citizen is off the mark. This people then have to work in small home grown companies by which some did not like it. They will usually have less prospect of helming good career progress in these SMEs rather than In MNCs. In terms of management, MNCs are usually much better than SMEs since they can afford the cost. SMEs on the other hand are trying to survive so they usually managed the basics need of their companies.
When these graduates earn less, they will become unhappy and hence vent thier frustrations on webpages, blogs and social media. Singaporean Graduates needs to stand out form the crowd as we are sharing the same pool of jobs. Only the best will get it. Getting a degree may suffice but in order to add value, they may need innternship and possibly scholarship. In our tertiary education, FTs graduate that come here are usually on scholarships. These students are serious about getting their success hence they will grab about any opportunities in this land. Citizens on the other hand are still contented with getting a good degree but fail the nedd (sic) to truly excel. This may bring about a more competitive climate and as a fact they will not like.
Recently, FTs are regarded as taking valueble university space. This is mostly true because some Singaporeans themselves did not get a shot to study there as their place had been specially reserved for FTs scholars. Our educational sector is already packed and is currently expanding. We can start accepting more when there is too much places. Yes, priority should go to Singaporeans first. Even when more universities are being built, recent graduate and undergraduates express their resentment when more students are coming on board the new university. Some singaporeans are just afraid to loose out; a kiasu mentality.
The goverment also made it a must to accept a citizen first rather than a PR or Ft when enrolling their children in primary schools. School fees are raised across the education landscape to widen the distinction of being a citizen comapred to a PR and FT. This move may be good to secure national loyalty. Whenever there is a GCE O or A levels results being released, FTs will dominate the some of the top spots. This angered (sic) Singaporeans parents and students alike because even when they put in tuition hours, they are unable to beat their scores. A reason is some FTs that come here are usually bright students. Since Singapore is based on Meritocracy, they are fairly rewarded. It is a fair marking system so singaporeans can only vent their anger somewhere. Actually, putting Fts in the system earlier from the start should inspire citizen to better their scores but instead they become a mockery. This is not a good attitude for some of the citizen because sooner or later they will have to compete with the FTs in the real globalised world.
Another sector is the transportation which citizen complains it is too pack and crowded. our transport system is not up to the mark especially the Rail sector. The system should have introduced a new line every 2 years or so after the completion on the NS and EW line.
Fts are blame for the system overload but I beg to differ. Most of the FTs do not take public transport, they are charterd using their company transport to and fro. An example is the use of buses to ferry Fts from their dorm to their shipyard or factories. If Fts were to really take the rail, it would sure to be packed till late night. What we are talking about is the influx of new citizens or PRs. Unfortuantely , FTs become the scape goat for this matter. As the population increase to 5.1M, off course it will overwhelm the rail system hence it has frequent breakdon and some problems.
Unhappy singaporeans (SP) debated on housing issues due to the high cost for both resale and fresh flat. Due to the increase of labour and materials, it is important for HDB to increase the sales of flat prices. Some SP are interested in investing on flats because they will know they will be getting higher resale values. The act of seelling their flat that made the prices reach sky high limits. This flats are usually sold to PRs who can afford it. Hence with the limited supply price will naturally increase. SP shoul stay in their house and not trereat it as an investment. They can do it for the private condo or landed property but not HDB. The govement responded by building more BTO flats to stabalize the market but only a minor impact is felt on the prices. Fts once again get the blame, high taxes were imposed on them when they owned any private property. This is an unfair move to me because the Fts are interested in premium units in th city and prime areas but not HDB flats. SP fails to realize this.
One of the ways to lower the prices down is to build high density flats that are way above 60 stories high. With more supplies per unit land, we can save more rather than building 12 stories only. We can put in 5 times as many unit in the taller flat as compared to the shorter ones. This way is limited because of the too many airfields
here. One suggestion is to locate them to the Tuas areas or make a special island just for the military and navy forces. Airfield is a huge burden to our space but it cannot be help out until better use of land is put into place.
Overall, if our resources are well developed, we can put in more FTs. They are welcome as they will mostly helped us out in our economy.
The FTs had been helping us to build our economy from the bottom and up till we become a first world country. We sahll (sic) never dismissed (sic) them as irrelevat (sic) in our society. For example, in the employment sector, citizen are complaining that FTs are stealing their jobs away. I do not think so. If One is to walk around the shopping malls before the opening hours, the person can see a lot of job vacancies available. Most of them are of course form the retail and food and beverage sector. There are plenty to go around but there are no takers. FTs are not allowed to be hired due to the tighter working regulations that require a certain quota limits. Instead this business must rely on hiring citizen before they can increase their FT quota. The goverment introduce this measure just recently. Is it doing good for the companies that are already struggling to hire Singaporeans? No. It is hurting the small companies badly.
The service industry which comprises of Retail, F&B and Hospitality are the hardest hit because citizen shun this job as these sector requires the employee to work on weekends, public holidays, to do overtime and rotating shifts. Moreover, the pressure to deal with the customer is the huge bug bear. The pay is just mearge and it does not appeal to the younger generations as about half of the cohort has at least a degree qualification. Those that are willing wants to work in the managerial positions. This cause wide shortages of service workers in the sector. So there is a real need to hire FTs to fill up the jobs. The businesses that are seeing red might fold over if this quota are still present.
It is not possible to replace a service worker like the Sales assistants, cashiers, cooks and waiters with technology solely. This sectors needs a human to support it. Until there is a time when robots can start cooking and serving customers as good as human, we still need FTs to cover the shortages. Another sector that is experiencing a hiring crunch is the Transport sector. There are many job opening but it does not generally appeal to the younger people due to the same reasons. We cannot replace drivers with robots so Fts are still needed here.
The cleaning industry too need them. Even when our senior worker are putting in their part there are simply not enough to cover the gap. The construction and the Marine sectors are mostly made up with FTs since this jobs are both dangerous and tough for Singaporeans to handle. What I had just mentioned are blue collars jobs. A job that needs semi skilled and unskilled labour.
In the white collar job; this is where the real competitions start. If one were to go to the CBD, you may see people from a myriad of nationalities. They are skilled labour. In fact they are more skilled than the new graduates. They usually do high end jobs that Singaporean themselves are unable to fill. This are usually the managerail jobs in large MNCs. We cannot deny them from coming here as MNCs has a habit of bringing their people to manage their overseas post. We can look at the international brands helmed by FTs. They still run as good as they did. The wealth of experience that these FTs have are in severe shortages. Managing an MNCs is tougher than a mom and pop shop. Even DBS hired hired an experience FT from citibank due to his good track record. The bank is doing well right now as he did some shake up of the whole system to make it more productive.Hence a FT with good skills should be welcome.
The singaporeans that are unhappy is fighting for the limited professional and executives jobs. As singapore churns out thousand of graduates each year, the MNCs in singapore economy cannot really take all of them. Hence when faced with a better FTs graduate, the favor towards citizen is off the mark. This people then have to work in small home grown companies by which some did not like it. They will usually have less prospect of helming good career progress in these SMEs rather than In MNCs. In terms of management, MNCs are usually much better than SMEs since they can afford the cost. SMEs on the other hand are trying to survive so they usually managed the basics need of their companies.
When these graduates earn less, they will become unhappy and hence vent thier frustrations on webpages, blogs and social media. Singaporean Graduates needs to stand out form the crowd as we are sharing the same pool of jobs. Only the best will get it. Getting a degree may suffice but in order to add value, they may need innternship and possibly scholarship. In our tertiary education, FTs graduate that come here are usually on scholarships. These students are serious about getting their success hence they will grab about any opportunities in this land. Citizens on the other hand are still contented with getting a good degree but fail the nedd (sic) to truly excel. This may bring about a more competitive climate and as a fact they will not like.
Recently, FTs are regarded as taking valueble university space. This is mostly true because some Singaporeans themselves did not get a shot to study there as their place had been specially reserved for FTs scholars. Our educational sector is already packed and is currently expanding. We can start accepting more when there is too much places. Yes, priority should go to Singaporeans first. Even when more universities are being built, recent graduate and undergraduates express their resentment when more students are coming on board the new university. Some singaporeans are just afraid to loose out; a kiasu mentality.
The goverment also made it a must to accept a citizen first rather than a PR or Ft when enrolling their children in primary schools. School fees are raised across the education landscape to widen the distinction of being a citizen comapred to a PR and FT. This move may be good to secure national loyalty. Whenever there is a GCE O or A levels results being released, FTs will dominate the some of the top spots. This angered (sic) Singaporeans parents and students alike because even when they put in tuition hours, they are unable to beat their scores. A reason is some FTs that come here are usually bright students. Since Singapore is based on Meritocracy, they are fairly rewarded. It is a fair marking system so singaporeans can only vent their anger somewhere. Actually, putting Fts in the system earlier from the start should inspire citizen to better their scores but instead they become a mockery. This is not a good attitude for some of the citizen because sooner or later they will have to compete with the FTs in the real globalised world.
Another sector is the transportation which citizen complains it is too pack and crowded. our transport system is not up to the mark especially the Rail sector. The system should have introduced a new line every 2 years or so after the completion on the NS and EW line.
Fts are blame for the system overload but I beg to differ. Most of the FTs do not take public transport, they are charterd using their company transport to and fro. An example is the use of buses to ferry Fts from their dorm to their shipyard or factories. If Fts were to really take the rail, it would sure to be packed till late night. What we are talking about is the influx of new citizens or PRs. Unfortuantely , FTs become the scape goat for this matter. As the population increase to 5.1M, off course it will overwhelm the rail system hence it has frequent breakdon and some problems.
Unhappy singaporeans (SP) debated on housing issues due to the high cost for both resale and fresh flat. Due to the increase of labour and materials, it is important for HDB to increase the sales of flat prices. Some SP are interested in investing on flats because they will know they will be getting higher resale values. The act of seelling their flat that made the prices reach sky high limits. This flats are usually sold to PRs who can afford it. Hence with the limited supply price will naturally increase. SP shoul stay in their house and not trereat it as an investment. They can do it for the private condo or landed property but not HDB. The govement responded by building more BTO flats to stabalize the market but only a minor impact is felt on the prices. Fts once again get the blame, high taxes were imposed on them when they owned any private property. This is an unfair move to me because the Fts are interested in premium units in th city and prime areas but not HDB flats. SP fails to realize this.
One of the ways to lower the prices down is to build high density flats that are way above 60 stories high. With more supplies per unit land, we can save more rather than building 12 stories only. We can put in 5 times as many unit in the taller flat as compared to the shorter ones. This way is limited because of the too many airfields
here. One suggestion is to locate them to the Tuas areas or make a special island just for the military and navy forces. Airfield is a huge burden to our space but it cannot be help out until better use of land is put into place.
Overall, if our resources are well developed, we can put in more FTs. They are welcome as they will mostly helped us out in our economy.
