I refer to the article “Bosses keen to pay more for locals but there’re limits: DPM” (Channel NewsAsia, Dec 10).

It states that “Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean believes the operators and providers of essential services would like to get as many Singaporeans as possible to work for them by paying higher salaries.

He cited bus drivers as an example, saying this is one reason bus companies want to increase the pay and improve the work conditions to attract more Singaporeans.

However, he said, there will always be a limit to the number of Singaporeans who will take up such jobs.

Mr Teo said Singaporeans have very high aspirations and want higher value jobs due to higher education.

That explains why there will always be a need for foreign workers to make up for the shortfall.”

Singaporeans don’t want to work?

We have heard this time and again over the years – that it is very hard to find Singaporeans to work.

Let’s try to examine this statement more closely.

For a start, another article on the same day – “New senior care training scheme for social service workers” (Channel NewsAsia, Dec 10) may give us a clue.

Pay too low?

It states that “The scheme is open to interested applicants with at least a secondary education. Those who complete the first and second level of training can expect a salary of around S$1,200 and S$2,200 respectively.

Most of such workers are currently paid around S$1,100.”

Even with the increased salary of around $1,200 after the first level of training, the take home pay after the employee’s 20 per cent CPF contribution is only $960.

Isn’t this very low pay?

How long will it take all the workers currently earning around $1,100 to get assessed under this new scheme to get at least $1,200?

So, the primary reason why it may be difficult to find Singaporeans to work may be that the pay is simply too low for Singaporeans to survive.

The other reason may be that there are too many low-pay jobs which typically require 12 hour work days, six days a week in order to earn more, like security guards, cleaners, traffic wardens, etc.

Helping Singaporeans get low-pay jobs?

Why is it that so many recent new initiatives to help Singaporeans to get jobs are for very low paying jobs, like part-time security guards at about $4 an hour. (“Help housewives and retirees become security guards?”, Sep 13)

So, if we think and say that the basic pay for a bus driver which has just been increased to $1,625 at SMRT for Singaporean drivers is not high enough to attract Singaporeans, just look at the very low pay initiatives that are being rolled out like that for security guards described above.

Near negative wage growth last 12 years?

In the final analysis of why it may be difficult to find Singaporeans to work, perhaps we just need to look at why the real median wage growth of almost all workers was or close to negative in the last 12 years or so? (“Workers’ rights: 12 years of near negative wage growth for almost all workers?“, Dec 9)

Low-pay jobs highest unemployment rates?

Are there any other evidence to debunk the notion that Singaporeans are fussy and don’t want to work, particularly in low-paying jobs?

Well, according to the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) Singapore Workforce 2012, the two occupational categories with the highest unemployment rates as of June 2012 were Service & Sales Workers and Cleaners, Labourers & Related Workers, at 5.6 and 5.1 per cent, respectively.

These are much higher than the Total Resident Unemployment Rate of 3.4 per cent in the MOM report .

So, if Singaporeans don’t want to work in these generally low paying jobs, why are their unemployment rates so much higher?

(Note: The unemployment rate by occupation is obtained by dividing the number of unemployed who previously worked in a given occupation by the sum of the number of workers employed in this occupation and the unemployed who previously worked in the occupation.)

Could it be because Singaporeans employed in these jobs may be losing their jobs to even lower pay foreign workers, and thus they may be finding it hard to get re-employed at a decent comparable pay to their previous already low pay jobs?

In this connection, I spoke recently to some foreign workers who worked as grass-cutters and cleaners. They told me their basic pay, excluding overtime, was only $500!

Leong Sze Hian