BB BE: The final stretch

by Bertha Henson

SO, WE have an official response to something that was said at a Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) rally – Dr Chee Soon Juan’s assertion that the G “only created 100 jobs” for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents last year. That is an alarming statement and anyone who doesn’t know the ins-and-outs on the reporting of employment numbers would have been flummoxed. Sure, we know retrenchments are up but so few jobs created?

Said the Manpower Ministry in a statement yesterday (May 4): “The increase in local employment that Dr Chee refers to is not the total number of new jobs taken by locals in 2015. It refers instead to the difference between total number of locals entering jobs and those leaving jobs, for example owing to retirement. This difference, or the ‘net’ number of new jobs taken by locals, was 700 in 2015 and it does not reflect the total number of new jobs for locals.”

So it’s not about jobs so much as an increase in the number of people employed in new jobs. And this could be small simply because we have fewer people entering the workforce and more people retiring.

Dr Chee had said that 100 jobs would translate to one job per constituency. “How many of you in Bukit Batok think you are going to fight for that one job if and when you’re retrenched?”

Even if Dr Chee had got the figure correct, that it is 700 jobs “created”, it would still have been alarmist. It is not that Singapore has no jobs. It is that there are not enough workers – or workers who can fill them.

How does this square with the increasing number of retrenched people, you say? They are laid off and looking for jobs (which are there). The new problem is that some are finding that the job hunt takes longer because they don’t fit into the job openings or don’t want them for some reason.

The issue is a difficult one to follow. It is easier to grab at one number and move on to a (misleading) conclusion. You can blame the complexity of the manpower reporting, but if you want more transparency and more numbers, more effort must be made to understand them.

It is the same with immigration figures. So the complaint is that more foreigners are working in Singapore. That’s true, but it is a smaller increase compared to the past. We can do away with any extra foreign labour altogether only when we have locals who are able and willing to do the jobs they do.

Today, a few bigwigs from the People’s Action Party (PAP) will be taking to the rally stage. Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam will be speaking and so will the head of the labour movement, Mr Chan Chun Sing. Perhaps, they will address the SDP proposal to implement retrenchment insurance, which SDP has gleefully pointed, is supported even by some in the PAP. Everybody wants some “cover” when they are out of a job – the question is how.

The bigger issue, though, is: How much G intervention should there be in the labour market without tying the hands of employers? What’s the balance between letting employers decide on what is the best way for them to carry on their business and making sure workers aren’t screwed over or be left unable to feed their families? Is the current system of paying out retrenchment benefits not good enough?

All this is not as easy to understand as catchphrases like “Return our CPF”. It is usually interpreted in the most basic manner: Return our CPF – all of it and now! Nobody really thinks about the consequences for the nation if this comes about and we get our windfall at age 55. We just want our money, we say, and we know how to take care of ourselves. Sure or not?

As I said earlier, election rallies are platforms for people to say anything. That’s the format. No one wants to spend an evening listening to a lecture. By all means, let’s be entertained and get caught up in the mood. But after the rally is when the thinking should be done. Did the speakers make sense?

PAP’s Murali Pillai has said that he prefers a private sit-down with residents to speaking at rallies. There is a great deal of merit in his method as some voters make their choice on the basis of one meeting or the strength of a handshake. Recall the usual complaint from people during election time that they’ve “never met their MP before” and so forth. People like to be fussed over. Mr Murali is focused on winning over the people in the constituency.

SDP’s Dr Chee, however, is speaking to people well beyond Bukit Batok, by virtue of the rally stage. He is going heavy on General Election topics like “a voice in Parliament” and G policies for the needy, the elderly and, workers.

Maybe today at the two parties’ rallies, we’ll see a clearer reversal of roles. Mr Murali countering the SDP’s charge that he will be just another man in white if elected, and Dr Chee convincing people that he can run a town council as well as the PAP Jurong-Clementi Town Council can, a subject which he has touched on in his previous rally speeches.

Anyway, I’m just an outsider, as are many of you who are reading this. It’s the Bukit Batok residents who have to do the brainwork before they vote on Saturday.

 

Featured Image by Sean Chong.

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The post BB BE: The final stretch appeared first on The Middle Ground.

- Bertha Henson