Are you ready for 7 million people on tiny Singapore?
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Laura02:
I am not surprised. 4 years ago, around early 2009 was the depth of the Lehman crisis. Rent dropped like a rock. One mistake many budding entrepreneurs make is to assume that low rents at the bottom of a cycle will continue.My close relative runs a small business. 4 yr ago, the rental from his shop was $5500, and he employed a PR with a diploma for $1300. Today, the landlord has asked for an increased rental of $9000 and he employs 2 Singaporean ITE trainees for $1000 each.
Unfortunately, i have heard other stories like this. While I agree that the overall picture paints a less gloomy picture, individual stories of rental hikes, employee salary increases and increasing beauracratic demands suggest otherwise. It's painful, very painful, for the small business owners involved.
It is a fact of life, landlords will increase your rent if they see that your business is doing well. The calculation is very simple: it will cost the tenant money, customers and goodwill etc to move to another premises. Always bear that in mind when negotiating rents. And always remember that before splurging on business renovations.
As for the PR with diploma paid $1,300 a month, would you like to work for $1,300 a month with a diploma? We pay our part-timers (non graduate) more than $1,000 a month.
We cannot expect to be able to keep wages low, and at the same time demand that the gov do something to increase the income of low-income families. -
The more interesting question so far as immigration is concerned is this.
Why did our gov grant Admir Suljic an Employment Pass (I am assuming he does not have PR!)? Straits Times reported that he was originally here on social visit pass, then got a high paying retailer job and lived in an apartment in the central region. More interestingly, he already had a previous conviction and had served time for match fixing before he came to Singapore.
So nowadays we grant Employment Passes to any Tom, Dick or Harry with criminal records? :yikes: -
Irrelevant:
You have made simplistic assumptions for economic issue that is too complex.
I'm keen to debate you on this point.WeiHan:
Then, what is the need to say that immigration policy is for the purpose of lifting the working adults/elderlies ratio?
Let's say we have this scenario. What if the government credits every Singaporean 10 million dollars into his bank account. What is the impact on the economy?
A logical outcome would be that a huge chunk of Singaporeans will decide that they can retire too. This implies that the SUPPLY of good and services will dip significantly while DEMAND remains steady. To resolve this shortage, price of goods and services can only spike. Agree?
By your argument above, I guess you are trying to say that there is be inflation because of aging population if there is no fresh supply of young immigrants and foreign workers to provide the services but the conclusion is simply not true.
Just take Japan for example. They are suffering deflation, instead of inflation that you are trying to imply. This all happened while they have zero interest rate to stimulate spending ( abit of similar effect to your assumption of gov giving everybody $10 millions but it much more complex...Singapore gov can't afford to print such amount of out-of-thin-air money). -
Irrelevant:
An instance of over emphasis in GDP and a lack of consideration for the common folks who rely on retail business in their daily needs (their purchases and also possibly of starting biz)?
If you look at incentives offered by EDB and Spring Singapore, you will realise that their key focus is on mfg and related industries, with little or no incentives targeted at pure retail businesses. Although retail businesses contributes to GDP growth as well, IMHO, having too big a retail component is a sign of weakness rather than of strength. Therefore, it is likelier that the government would intervene in the industrial segment (e.g. reducing leasehold periods to 30 years) than the retail. -
pirate:
I assume you are being sarcastic here. Every application is dependent on the honesty of the applicant who has to declare no criminal conviction etc.The more interesting question so far as immigration is concerned is this.
Why did our gov grant Admir Suljic an Employment Pass (I am assuming he does not have PR!)? Straits Times reported that he was originally here on social visit pass, then got a high paying retailer job and lived in an apartment in the central region. More interestingly, he already had a previous conviction and had served time for match fixing before he came to Singapore.
So nowadays we grant Employment Passes to any Tom, Dick or Harry with criminal records? :yikes:
Unless MOM has evidence, how to deny permit? Even for Singaporeans, a criminal record is P&C and nobody can verify if a person has a Singapore criminal record. How do u check? -
I am questioning the basis of the Workers Party’s Population Paper where it proposes to get 1% of current non-working SG citizens back into the workforce?
How doable is this? Already SME’s cannot get enough workers now, yet WP wants to freeze foreign workers at current level and start the process of getting this 1% working. What happens now? What happens for SME workforce during the period the 1% SG citizens being trained?
How realistic is this 1%? The majority of 1% would probably say if I could work I would have done it already. 2-3 incomes better than 1 but may have many reasons for not working, - looking after sick, dementia elderly parents or p-i-ls, looking after too many kids with no family support and childcare being too inconvenient or expensive, do not want maid because house too small already, spouse too ill to work so must look after, cannot afford to pay maid agency fee and maid salary upfront and cannot get loan, already working part-time but cannot do full-time. These are only some reasons. There are probably many other reasons.
So if WP strategy is to increase % working Singaporeans, how does it plan to deal with the above reasons. And mind you if you build more old folks home, hospitals, child care, mental care facilities, disability facilities, build bigger flats, etc. you still need foreign workers to build these facilities and to work there, so that the 1% of Singaporeans can go to work!!!
And what about the time spent to train up these Singaporeans? Who takes care of the different problems while these Singaporeans are being trained? Is on the job training feasible for all the jobs that WP thinks the 1% can do? So in the meantime when the stay at home mother/sister goes for part-time training at SHATEC to be a waitress or chef’s assistant who looks after the elderly dementia father?, mentally disabled brother? 3 young children? etc.
So it appears that WP proposal is a circular argument. It looks good on paper but is it workable? Why have they not thought of a workable strategy instead of something that only appears good on paper but is impossible to implement? -
WeiHan:
To understand more of Japan's economic woes, you have to trace its roots to the Plaza Accord (in 1985?) and the events leading to/following the Accord. Our challenges are somewhat different from theirs although demographically, we are facing an aging situation too.You have made simplistic assumptions for economic issue that is too complex.
By your argument above, I guess you are trying to say that there is be inflation because of aging population if there is no fresh supply of young immigrants and foreign workers to provide the services but the conclusion is simply not true.
Just take Japan for example. They are suffering deflation, instead of inflation that you are trying to imply. This all happened while they have zero interest rate to stimulate spending ( abit of similar effect to your assumption of gov giving everybody $10 millions but it much more complex...Singapore gov can't afford to print such amount of out-of-thin-air money).
If you are keen on a debate and an exchange of ideas, please indulge me and debate me on my scenario. My intention is to start with a simple scenario and then to add more variables subsequently. Otherwise, I rest my case.
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Just relax:
But is perpetually relying on foreign workers the best solution? The Whitle Paper has projected such reliance, all the way till 2030, then what? With even more citizens becoming too old to work by 2030, wouldn't the need for more (younger) foreign workers be more acute? But if 6.9m is already the limit that our then infrastructure can accomodate, then how?I am questioning the basis of the Workers Party's Population Paper where it proposes to get 1% of current non-working SG citizens back into the workforce?
How doable is this? Already SME's cannot get enough workers now, yet WP wants to freeze foreign workers at current level and start the process of getting this 1% working. What happens now? What happens for SME workforce during the period the 1% SG citizens being trained?
How realistic is this 1%? The majority of 1% would probably say if I could work I would have done it already. 2-3 incomes better than 1 but may have many reasons for not working, - looking after sick, dementia elderly parents or p-i-ls, looking after too many kids with no family support and childcare being too inconvenient or expensive, do not want maid because house too small already, spouse too ill to work so must look after, cannot afford to pay maid agency fee and maid salary upfront and cannot get loan, already working part-time but cannot do full-time. These are only some reasons. There are probably many other reasons.
So if WP strategy is to increase % working Singaporeans, how does it plan to deal with the above reasons. And mind you if you build more old folks home, hospitals, child care, mental care facilities, disability facilities, build bigger flats, etc. you still need foreign workers to build these facilities and to work there, so that the 1% of Singaporeans can go to work!!!
And what about the time spent to train up these Singaporeans? Who takes care of the different problems while these Singaporeans are being trained? Is on the job training feasible for all the jobs that WP thinks the 1% can do? So in the meantime when the stay at home mother/sister goes for part-time training at SHATEC to be a waitress or chef's assistant who looks after the elderly dementia father?, mentally disabled brother? 3 young children? etc.
So it appears that WP proposal is a circular argument. It looks good on paper but is it workable? Why have they not thought of a workable strategy instead of something that only appears good on paper but is impossible to implement?
And I'm not the only one asking this, I've read many bloggers askiing the same question too, for eg, this NUS professor wrote:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/ben-leong/why-the-population-white-paper-is-ill-conceived/10151277988162549[quote]..I suspect again that the theory is that we want people to make more money and white-collar jobs make more, so more white-collar jobs are good -- and we will build the pyramids required to support these white-collared jobs by filling the base with foreigners in a sort of \"no-one-loses quasi-Ponzi scheme (http://piaroh.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/topspin/)\".
And even if we agree with this \"create-white-collar-by-stuffing-the-pyramid\" approach, is it sustainable? Can we stop at 2/3? Or are we going to keep stuffing?
If we are going to keep going with this, is 6.9 m enough? Keep in mind that if we do get to 6.9 million in 2030 according to the plan, we will hardly have any land and wriggle room left. Then how? [/quote]
And as far as I know, none of the supporters of While Paper is able to answer the \"what-happen-beyond-2030/6.9m\" question.. yet.
Or is it that beyond that, it's likely to be none-of-their-business anymore? -
Just relax:
How come Straits Times can? Employment Pass Office never heard of Google? It was not exactly P&C... it was all over the European news.
I assume you are being sarcastic here. Every application is dependent on the honesty of the applicant who has to declare no criminal conviction etc.pirate:
The more interesting question so far as immigration is concerned is this.
Why did our gov grant Admir Suljic an Employment Pass (I am assuming he does not have PR!)? Straits Times reported that he was originally here on social visit pass, then got a high paying retailer job and lived in an apartment in the central region. More interestingly, he already had a previous conviction and had served time for match fixing before he came to Singapore.
So nowadays we grant Employment Passes to any Tom, Dick or Harry with criminal records? :yikes:
Unless MOM has evidence, how to deny permit? Even for Singaporeans, a criminal record is P&C and nobody can verify if a person has a Singapore criminal record. How do u check?
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/croatia-indicts-21-over-match-fixing-scandal
http://www.deltaworld.org/sport/A-huge-corruption-scandal-shakes-Croatian-football/
Even the New Paper reported his previous 2010 conviction in an article on 31 Oct 2012 here
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Sports/Story/A1Story20121030-380435.html -
mum_sugoku:
Assuming the White Paper is unworkable, so why is one unworkable solution better than the other unworkable solution?And as far as I know, none of the supporters of While Paper is able to answer the \"what-happen-beyond-2030/6.9m\" question.. yet.
Or is it that beyond that, it's likely to be none-of-their-business anymore?
I would very much like to see how the WP proposes to get older workers and SAHMs to become construction workers. :evil:
At least the PAP white paper is more honest. It says, this is our plan, it will take us economically to 2030, after that Singapore may become so overcrowded we may all fall into the sea unless somebody comes up with something different then.
At the very least, the WP paper should have been upfront. If it was honest, it would say, this is our plan. If it works, everything will be hunky dory in 2030. If it does not work, Singapore's economy may fall to bits within 5 years. Many of you may not have jobs, there may not be enough nurses in not enough hospitals so you may have to wait forever for a medical appointment, you may have to wait long long for a HDB flat and no, you cannot hire any FDWs.
Choose one.
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