Just my Observation: The Phantom Singaporean Worker, another MOM Frankenstein invention?

MisterLim001 (13Sept2013) wrote:

Source thread: [discussion]: Encouraging locals to be in service industry
What measures can be implemented or what can be done to encouraged locals to be interested in service industry? Besides increasing pay (which can calculated), what can be done to increase people to take pride (which is not continued) in service industry?
Also, why is the reality show, Can you Serve? not shown anymore? It has only 2 seasons.....
Can You Serve Season 2: Episode 1 - YouTube

MOM news/ image source
I say turn the foreign worker levy scheme (FWLS) into a COE bidding scheme with half of ALL proceeds divided equally into Singaporean's CPF training account. The money being usable for studies (or medicare etc if the person is aged/sick).

This is because the low wage foreigner biased FWLS, which imposes levy on only low paid foreign workers has 2 very bad long term effects.

Firstly, it give low wage Singaporeans easy money for almost no work, an embarrassment really, since employers hire these low wage Singaporeans mainly to just as seat warmers so as to hit the quota sufficient to employ a required number of foreign workers to get the job done. Even the low wage foreigners look down on the low wage Singaporeans due to this biased treatment consequent of stupid government policy. These poor Singaporeans also remain untrained since little training is necessary to accomplish their task of keeping seats warm- indeed, the low wage Singaporean profession has become that of a phantom worker.

The low wage Singaporeans also find it difficult and discouraging to get promoted into managerial positions since at the blink of the eye, having crossed some salary threshold, the employer is now able to easily replace the Singaporean with a foreign talent either because the levy payable is little or absent for higher paid foreigner employees.

The end result of all this is that we have a persistently increasing pool of low wage workers doing nothing except full/ part time seat warming- phantom work is now only solution available to Ministry of Manpower (MOM) Inc.- it now seems.

A universal COE like FWLS could be a large source of funding for worker training, financial support etc for Singaporeans, however, in its desperation to build up the finance/ banking sector in Singapore (banks hire many foreigner con-men who are paid well to bet against their own clients), alongside the MOM pen pushers, desperate to justify their purchase of 472 cushy S$575 chairs 'Designer chairs for MOM staff' [Mypaper,25Mar2011] have only perpetuated this ballyhoo-fool's errand- ostensibly to give poorer Singaporeans work to do. Yet all that they have seem to come up with is the 'prestigious' job of seat warming!

But while the short term policy of phantom work has certainly satisfied the government need for statistical publication and manipulation, what is the government to do now that the average phantom Singaporean worker has since become the original laughing stock of all foreigners in Singapore, if not round the world?

Singaporeans do not need a phantom government to create more phantom workers out of poorly funded and thus poorly schooled Singaporeans. Singaporeans want real training for jobs that really contribute, for jobs that make the world a better place- not jobs that make them seat warmers for foreign talent to carry on. An effective scheme like GST, coloured with the profitability from rationed supply like the COE scheme for cars will certainly pay good returns for Singaporeans to get properly cared for and schooled.

To achieve that, the levy waiver for employment passes (EP) foreigners (especially PMET ones) will have to end, and the phantom Singaporean worker of today will have to trained to really impact/ improve the world. Yes many pen-pushers at MOM might be made redundant, but they must be the original phantom workers who began this infectious domino of structural unemployment here in the very first place!

Just as NS for PRs CANNOT be moneytised (see Video: Hri Kumar vs Ng Eng Hen), neither can the foreign worker levy requirement for well paid foreigners (EP, SP etc) be waived.

Yes, I know that there are poor and sickly Singaporeans (/ those with young kids) who need the assistance of foreign domestic workers (FDW), but like GST, everything that moves can be taxed. Just as compensatory GST rebates are given, the more needy can receive more. A foreigner is a foreigner, just call a spade a spade- no more illogical permutations please.

In conclusion:
More for a new CPF 'training fund', with equal cash injections to all Singaporeans; equal levy for all foreigners regardless of occupation, not just the lowly paid ones and less pen pushers at MOM please.

Real proper CPF based training fund accounts for upgrading Singaporean workers, no more phantom/ Frankenstein jobs and policies please.
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Tags: Employment, labour, unemployment, MOM, Singapore, structural, economics, CPF, levy, government, tax, training, contract, welfare,

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HWZ:

19Sept2013: [discussion] Encouraging locals to be in service industry

A1: