According to the Ministry of Manpower’s Yearbook of Manpower Statistics 2015 –  the proportion of economically active polytechnic fresh graduates declined by 3.8 per cent from 93 per cent in 2007 to 89.2 per cent in 2014.

Full-time employed poly graduates dropped 16%?

Full-time permanently employed polytechnic fresh graduates declined by a whopping 15.9 per cent from 75.3 per cent in 2007 to 59.4 per cent in 2014.

Part-time employed polytechnic fresh graduates increased by a whopping 12.1 per cent from 17.7 per cent in 2007 to 29.8 per cent in 2014.

Part-time changed to 35 hours?

Since before 2009, part-time employment refers to employment where normal hours of work is less than 30 hours (it was changed to up to 35 hours in 2009) – arguably, the “real” part-time employed graduates may be much more, and correspondingly the full-time employed graduates much less.

Real starting salary growth -8% last 7 years?

The median starting salary for full-time permanently employed polytechnic fresh graduates increased by only 17.6 per cent from $1,700 in 2007 to $2,000 in 2014. As inflation from 2007 to 2014 was 25.5 per cent – does it mean that the real starting salary growth was -7.9 per cent (25.5 – 17.6) over the seven years?

Huge influx of foreign workers?

To what extent has the huge influx of foreigners to an estimated non-Singaporean share of the total workforce to 48 per cent now, and our liberal foreign labour policies contributed to the above?

Leong Sze Hian