63,900 job vacancies
We refer to the article “Shortage of skilled staff in some sectors with 63,900 vacancies in June” (Straits Times, Sep 16).
12,000 more vacancies than last year
It states that “There were a record 63,900 vacancies logged in June, nearly 12,000 more than a year earlier, according to Manpower Ministry statistics released yesterday. ”
The words “skilled staff” caught our eye and aroused our curiosity as to what types of jobs these were?
So, we looked at the MOM’s Labout Market Second Quarter 2014 report.
34,800 cleaners, service & sales vacancies?
The breakdown for the 63,900 job vacancies is 17,000 for production & transport operator, cleaners & labourers; 17,800 for clerical sales & service workers and 29,100 for professionals, managers, engineers and technicians (PMETs).
The obvious question that came to our mind was what were the salaries?
Low-pay jobs?
According to the MOM’s Benchmarking Occupational Wages‘ tool – the monthly basic median salary was just $1,000 and $1,550 for cleaners, labourers & related workers, and service and sales workers, respectively.
So, does it mean that about 54% (17,000 + 17,800 divided by 63,900) of the vacancies were in low-pay jobs?
Also, since the median is half the population – it means that half of say the service & sales workers actually had a basic pay of less than $1,550. In fact, a quarter of them had salaries of less than $1,163 (25th percentile).
How many Singaporeans can survive on such low salaries?
Moreover, the majority of the 95,700 unemployed and long-term unemployed residents as of June were PMETs.
Next, lets move on to the 29,100 PMET vacancies. Since there is a overall category for PMETs in the Benchmarking Occupational Wages‘ tool – we could not obtain any salaries data.
Anecdotally, we have been told that many PMET jobs only offered starting salaries of less than $2,000, even for experienced PMETs.
S-pass grew a whopping 94.8%?
In this connection, it obviously didn’t help that S-pass holders grew by 13% last year, from 142,400 to 160,900; and by a whopping 94.8% for the last 5 years (82,800 to 160,900).
Not level playing field?
For example, the 25th percentile basic salary for Associate professionals and technicians (APTs) was $2,321 – which may probably be closer to the starting pay or that for less experienced APTs. This may be smack in competition, arguably, with S-pass holders whose minimum salary is $2,200 – employers save on no CPF, no national service reservist liability, less likely maternity leave, no tunover during the typical 2-year contract, perhaps more qualified and experienced foreigners willing to work for lower pay, etc.
How come no salaries?
It would be helpful if the job vacancies report also gave the the salaries offered. If the WDA could list the job vacancies and salaries during the last financial crisis (2009) – why can’t we do it now too in the job vacancies report?
S Y Lee and Leong Sze Hian
P.S. Come with your family and friends to the 4th Return Our CPF protest on 27 September 4 pm at Speakers’ Cornerhttps://www.facebook.com/events/516436478486589/Share this:
