I had wanted to share this "Immigration Policy" thing the Workers Party and others are attacking the PAP government on. Lim Swee Say had taken pains to explain why the government simply cannot. Excellent piece.
The small man also want to say something about this. Let me put it this way......you think the Workers Party don't know that Singapore cannot reduce foreign talents and workers? Whichever party that runs the government will have to do that because that is the only way to survival.
This is the policy that hurts Singaporeans, and it really does. As long as the policy hurts Singaporeans, it is going to hurt the government the government of the day, whoever it may be. So the PAP kenna whack.
Be Careful. Did you see massive Singaporeans laid off just to be replaced by foreigners? You are not seeing massive lay off because lower labour cost from foreigners mitigated the higher wage for Singaporeans. Business is not politics, and it must makes dollar sense.
The whole world had gone under intense pressure and prolonged economic downturn for more than a decade and no true recovery yet. Because of the PAP's prudence (some say over prudent) we were in a position to capitalize on the extreme bearish environment.
What did we do? On the infrastructure front, it was time to invest before foreign labour gets more expensive when recovery takes place and building materials get more expensive. No one knows when, but one thing for sure is smaller economies recovers faster.
With cheaper foreigner, local companies can start up with smaller cost burden, thus we encourage entrepreneurship. They were given time to grow comfortably, and when they arrived to a certain size, we can help them expand abroad.
We invited companies from abroad to come into Singapore with these advantages that are not available during global recession.
All these were carried out with calibrated policies and manner that Singaporeans do get an advantage of being employed. I must emphasized that Singaporeans, and the Singapore economy are very dependent on employment. Majority of our people are employees instead of small business owners. Singapore is hardly a place where small businesses can thrive. The salaried man brings home more money than the proprietors, and live a more comfortable life.
There will Singaporeans who missed their promotion to foreigners. There will be Singaporeans missing the post they applied for and was given to foreigners. That is why I say this policy hurts Singaporeans. We con't want to call these people sacrifices, it don't sound nice and it don't sound good.
But the fact is, this is life. Some people gets luckier than others and some people do gets unlucky. For Singaporeans, majority still gets their raise and promotion. Most Singaporeans are still the luckier ones.
Opposition politicians are using this weakness faced by the government to gain political advantage, but that political advantage has a very very high cost to it. It is done so by staking the career of majority of Singaporeans. Without cheaper labour cost, employers will fold.
Will we take what the oppositions say and turn the table on our employers? Some Singaporeans wants to take revenge, but most Singaporeans want to keep their rice bowls.https://www.facebook.com/Anthony-Kan-Page-620606971399453/timeline/
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