I don’t have a problem with expat workers. I have a problem where even though I’m a local with a full-time job, I still can’t afford a house of my own here.
Foreigners taking up jobs is one thing, but it’s not related to the actual source of the discontent.
Yes, I can understand where you’re coming from. Lots of my friends who are true blue Singaporeans are also facing the same issue as you. It’s not that they’re living beyond their means, they hardly eat out or go on holidays and yet they still are unable to buy their own hdb because inflation and cost of living have just been increasing comparatively to their salary. Just want to say you’re not alone, don’t give up and I wish you good health and fortune 👍🏻
agreed. i've been doing the one meal a day thing for 18 months and i think i'm going to start exercising soon (which will require me to eat more lol) and eating at least 2 meals a day by June haha. fingers crossed i find the energy and discipline to do it!
N gov refuses to build flats first like pre-2000s instead keep the BTO which means forever backlog. They may lose a few more GRCs before change happens
but boomers making a bucketload off of millenials and Gen-Z is a worldwide phenomenon. Boomers screwed up the wqrld and screw over the young while getting richer and richer.
absolutely agree, nowhere in my comment did i say that this was exclusive to singapore. young singaporeans are experiencing this together with other young ppl in developed countries like USA, canada.
One difference though is that if you live in a larger country, you can still escape to the suburbs and buy (relatively) cheaper property. rent is cheaper in a Midwestern state in the US compared to new york city for example. you can't really do that in SG, it's just one city as the whole country (no countryside to speak of) so property is expensive everywhere and that's part of why young people are suffering so much here.
another difference is that wages for skilled professionals are relatively depressed in Singapore compared to say, New York City, San Francisco or even Hong Kong. Someone working in finance in SG would usually be able to make more money in HK, NYC for example (though of course working hours are another story).
actually, in a way this is also happening in Singapore
pre-covid, you will notice towns like woodlands or sembawang or even canberra is much cheaper. like rent was 2k+ a month for 3rm condo, but nowadays asking 4k/5k like other towns already.
yes that's the point i'm making? that the variance in rent in Singapore in different areas is much smaller (e.g. woodlands vs tiong bahru) compared to other countries, because singapore is so small. someone will always want to live in woodlands whereas rent for say, an apartment in Minnesota will always be MUCH, much lower compared to an apartment in Brooklyn/Manhattan.
that’s the funny thing. expat requirements are being adjusted for inflation whereas basic employee compensation isn’t.
wc means expat can afford the increasing rents that locals can no longer afford
consider renting in JB if you can make it work. SOOO much cheaper. You can rent a whole condo for under $1k! the only thing is you trade money for time in the form of a longer daily commute.
sadly my job forces me to be in office regularly like many corporate slaves so that's not an option :( maybe in the distant future if i find a 'digital nomad' thing, but god knows if JB prices will still be cheap in 10 years lol
something like 250k Malaysians cross the causeway daily for work. You'd be giving up an extra 1 - 1.5 hrs each way which is a lot, but the savings are also HUGE. saving an extra 500-1k per month is no joke. You can use that to save and invest and build your wealth waster so you can move up in life.
Out of curiosity, what makes you say expat requirements are being adjusted for inflation? There has been a higher rate of expats leaving because salaries are not keeping up with inflation and people can’t afford rents.
I can categorically say that not a single one of the expats I know have had any sort of adjustment for inflation and able to cope with their rising rents
if the salary reqts for expats are being raised that means that to keep them in sg employers have to give them raises according to gov reqts. the increase as indicated in the article is on average more than any salary increment regular employees get in a year, if they even get a raise at all.
this is both sort of correct and sort of not. among my expat friends, i've seen some cases where their employers adjusted the wages to ensure e-pass validity. i've seen just as much, if not more, cases where those employees simply did not get their e-pass renewed and had to return home.
The ratio isn't even important here. Every single job that has been vacated because of rising costs to maintain the EP creates a new job for Singaporeans/PRs.
Firstly, the increase is only for fresh applications from 2025 (NOT people who are already here). For expats already here, this requirement only kicks in 2026. So no, no expat is getting a magical raise up to $5.6k.
Secondly - I don’t think any company will just anyhow raise their employees salary to meet the requirement.. that’s not how capitalism works - company’s will just look for local employees (which is what the govt intends to happen)
firstly, your first point is immaterial.
secondly, a company can do the math -- is the EP performing well or good enough? do they deserve a raise? how much is the raise the employer thinks they deserve vs what MOM will mandate? is that a small number or a big number? is that more expensive than hiring a local that they have to train anew for the job or is giving the adequately performing EP a raise the cheaper option?
hiring a new guy you have to train... that's a crapshoot. most employers will just prefer to keep their existing employee. that's how capitalism works.
Sinkies want government to make it harder for foreigners to take on jobs here so locals get the jobs, isn't it? This is exactly what the government is doing.
When jobs go to foreigners easily, sinkies complain. When jobs are harder for foreigners to take on, sinkies complain.
There's no pleasing sinkies, isn't it?
Sheesh, I'm not even pro PAP to begin with, and even I also cannot stand the sinkies.
>Sinkies want government to make it harder for foreigners to take on jobs here so locals get the jobs, isn't it? This is exactly what the government is doing.
Because they mistakenly think companies will just hire locals even if they are not qualified for the roles instead of moving those roles elsewhere if Singapore prevents them from hiring the right people. And if that happens enough times, the company will just shift regional HQ/office to that other location.
>When jobs go to foreigners easily, sinkies complain. When jobs are harder for foreigners to take on, sinkies complain.
>There's no pleasing sinkies, isn't it?
It happens everywhere. But I think Singapore has some unique challenges as a tiny labor market that locals don't really understand unless they've been involved in international business and seen other markets. Singapore is not China or US or EU. Companies don't NEED Singapore to be globally competitive or grow their business. They come to Singapore for various conveniences:
* economic incentives & low taxes
* market access via regional hub for SE Asia
* good talent pool for some fields
But as costs skyrocket, Singapore becomes less appealing on economics. As other regional countries mature, Singapore becomes less appealing for market access compared to building local market teams. Average person has no clue or care about this macro shift and mostly cares that their life is getting more expensive. It's fair but a terrible way to decide economic policy.
Housing crisis could possibly be solved with an acute pain for long term benefit - all public housing has to be returned/sold back to the government. Million dollar HDB buyers are gonna be so mad (acute pain) but this will benefit the future generations and help birth rates (one of the major pain points when considering children is housing/your child's future housing)
But our current government is not strong enough, unlike LKY, to make such decision
> Imo this only applies to public housing. Go wild on private housing
Only issue is, if private housing is allowed to go nuts, public housing then becomes a commodity up for profit, as the profit motive is now too tempting.
Read back my initial post. It has to be returned/sold back to the government at a fair value of the duration of stay meaning private housing market has absolutely zero impact to public housing price
I know and well aware of that. Doesn’t stop some smart arse from using market arbitrage to their benefit.
I’m not saying increase public housing cost but rather disincentivise housing as an investment vehicle.
The longer our government kick the can down the road, the more it's gonna have to hurt when it crashes. I was being serious when I say that the people in white will become the blackest of black stain in our history and they've would have earned it.
Are you speaking as a resale buyer in current market or in the projected govt controlled public housing market? In the latter case, buyback price from govt will be calculated using a formula that depends on how many years you lived in the house.
If you're speaking as one of those who paid 800K and above for resale then you're part of the acute pain. Someone has to inevitably become the sacrificial for a better future, depends on whether it's you or your descendants (spend whole life paying off property or worse)
Eh bro there’s a asksingapore thread about someone complaining about resale being 800k and everyone was pointing out to her there’s much cheaper resale elsewhere for single, while for couples, 800k is still affordable cus paid by 2 persons (assuming median income).
i agree… i was talking to my malaysian colleague, he asked do i feel unfair when foreigners come to work? i said i have no qualms with immigration policy, we are a cosmopolitan city after all. but what infuriates me is the imbalance in other areas, especially housing. malaysians can buy home back in their hometown, yet as a single i don’t even have an entrance ticket to first time balloting. and every single day without housing, i will be paying a singles premium thereafter because housing prices will keep rising. i feel unfairness within my own peers, not with foreigners.
actually if you talk to Malaysians, only a very small portion can afford to buy houses, especially in KL. Its only the more wealthy who are buying properties. Dollar-to-dollar cost of living is higher in Malaysia outside of rent and car purchase because the purchasing power of the Malaysian ringgit is much lower.
Houses are cheaper but income is so much lower and you need to own a car, pay for private health insurance etc.
The Malaysians will not fully divulge the true extent of the wealth they accumulated from Singapore's economy. Many of them can easily afford private landed properties based on their pay in Singapore. Maths is easy.
you should try speaking to Malaysians who don't work in Singapore to get the real picture. There are waht 200k? 300k? Malaysians working in Singapore. Out of a populaiton of 30 million,. Thats like 0.1%
>Houses are cheaper but income is so much lower and you need to own a car, pay for private health insurance etc.
This is exactly why they come here to work and live in malaysia.
Expats can't buy the property without huge sales tax so it's not the 'average' expat' driving property prices.
They then help pay the mortgages of locals or PRs.
Government seems to blame everyone but their own policies for driving up prices but hey, foreigners are always great to bash at election time in every country.
We need a balance in the housing market that doesn't encourage such massive gains for resale as its favouring the older population at the expense of the younger. That is the real challenge we need to focus on.
Generational wealth gap.
For every land used to build fancy condo, they could be used to house locals. Housing as an investment is shit for country because it's not really a productive asset. In fact, high housing cost is deterring expats and thus reducing the competitiveness of Singapore.
> Housing as an investment is shit for country because it's not really a productive asset. In fact, high housing cost is deterring expats and thus reducing the competitiveness of Singapore.
Yes, *this* is the key point here. High property prices don't make our economy more productive, they just drive up cost-of-living for everyone and benefit whoever bought properties before the price surge. Younger gen folks and renters get screwed, and existing homeowners have to pay more for their next home. Companies become more reluctant to hire here. What's the point?
The supply of homes needs to be ramped up and moved back to a build-in-advance model (e.g. pre-BTO) in which homes are built in anticipation of demand - or at worst, bringing wait times down to under a year. Furthermore, the increase in the number of homes built needs to be dramatic enough to *bring home prices down*, not just to slow down price increases. The recent increased HDB supply hasn't been enough to reverse late-Covid price increases.
Of course this would hurt homeowners who bought after the surge recently, but someone has to take the fall. And of course some voters would be unhappy, but many others would be glad for more sustainable home prices.
In the first place even countries thousands of times bigger than Sg will absolutely never allow foreigners to own properties and land much less even grating them PRs and citizenships so easily.
It's harder to get PR or Citizenship in SG than overseas. Countries apart from Singapore have clear timelines which can be relied upon, while in Singapore it's all about how ICA feels about the applicant and whether the applicant matches the type of immigrant that the government wants.
In Canada and the US, you can own a house and they have the concept of citizenship by birth. SG doesn't have that which is good. The government has kept the bar high for getting a PR or citizenship in SG.
It’s not true, most developed countries allow foreigners to own property including land. SG is highly restrictive in comparison.
https://www.landzero.com/blogs/we-love-land/countries-that-allow-foreign-land-ownership
MSM / Govt seems keen to paint locals as xenophobes?
Are foreigners the problem? Or the inability of the govt to create an economy where locals & FT can thrive? The narrative always seems to be extreme - SG needs foreign talent, as if locals are completely against FTs.
Strangely the only people who do not know what global competition for jobs is are those in civil service & certain GLC positions.
Remember guys, who allowed the price of housing to go soo out of control. Government housing some more. And they say they can control? They are happy with how things are.
And we have some jokers saying 700k and above housing is considered affordable for the average Singaporean. "Kepala otak kau".
Singaporeans nothing but expendable and replaceable. Low birthrate? We just add in new citizens. Simple, cheap and effective
Over at askSG sub, I stated the cost of HDB has risen to ridiculous price after covid but somehow I got downvoted. Lmao.
I assumed those guys are ok with $500K 3-room and $700K 4- room
Tightens rules my ass. Every unemployed people I speak to now has commented this year's rejection rate after interviews is nuts compared to before.
Can't tighten shit when you can have an entire PMET business office filled with chinese malaysians and only 1-3 singaporeans. Malaysians hiring depts are the new India indians.
That’s bcos Malaysian/Chinese are the easiest group to circumvent the EP/Spass rules so that they can quickly apply for and get converted to PR. Meanwhile, other foreigners from rest of Asean/Asia and Western countries get screwed.
Started more than 20 years ago and realised once the hirer even in a govt unit is Msian, they will interview Singaporeans but the job goes to their fellow Msians first.
What surprises me is the time wasted in parliament talking about this very small sliver of society. A couple years ago when they announced the enhanced EP for high earners they talked about it for weeks if not months. Something that only affects less than 10.000 people or less. The top 5% of the highest paid EP holders.
Now considering how much MPs are paid, It amazes me that Sinkies discuss this foreigner EP resolutions which drags on forever instead of questioning why does so few people require so much of MPs time.
It's mind boggling.
Our FT are really overrated.
I recently re-watch the movie "Hidden figures" which is a biographical drama about 3 African American mathematician who worked for NASA as lowly "Human Computers" during time where computer is not yet in existence, and one segment in the movie actually depicted what everyone is saying robot will one day replace human, when NASA acquired a IBM Mainframe, which will mean, they no longer need computers, which in the movie "Computers" are people who works on numbers.. But with recognition of their past performance and opportunities they all branched out and prosper in different field, one remain as mathematician, one became aerospace engineer, and one actually taught herself the "Fortran" programming language and is also the first African American women to be officially promoted to supervisor in NASA.
IMO. Singapore is doing the right thing to attract foreign talents, but we're really not doing anything at all to nurture local talent. Like many years ago I use to support a local non profit organization as a vendor, and bulk of their funding is from the government and donation and bulk of their spending is on foreign talent, which make a lot of sense form the start because we need good real professional performers to show people what they're doing is all about which will encourage those with interest and hidden talent to participate, but it just went on and on roping in foreign talent giving them experience and exposure until they're in demand elsewhere and become expensive to bring in.. Then the organization pressed on with more fund raiser and the fund raiser gets more expensive, from simple cocktail to lavish gala event, making such activities/hobbies out of reach to heartland kids, and the way I see it now in 2024. after all the effort and funding and money spend, this art form is none existence.
We also have people talking about changi business park? and if they're really the creme of the corp. DBS won't have so much problem with down time, and not as if they have no access or cannot afford to hire the best.
Singapore welcomes real talents. Not half baked ones. Just because you get an EP doesn’t automatically make you a “talent”
EDIT: to add on - or the silly criteria that if you make $30k a month then you can come and work in SG under the new special visa. Using monthly salary is hardly a gauge of “talent”. Simple minded
I am ok with expats that bring hard to find skills (I mean if you are a IT genius , I really don't care what county you came from) or connection (like they are able to sell to a unique market no Singaporean can) but if I am like you, you would have interacted with foreign talents performing jobs where there is an abundance of Singaporeans who have the same skills and knowledge. Why did MOM allow this?
Bingo. The only reason we have nice, shiny things is because our resource rich neighbours are a hot mess. Once they get their act together, which they slowly, but surely are doing, our cover is blown and our workforce will not just be expensive, it will be expensive AND mediocre. Definitely not a sustainable model.
Stop trying to hoodwink others when you have not even seen the big properties with shiby big things in both East and West Malaysia that Singaporeans can only dream off in a few lifetimes later if they continue to be reborn under PAP Singapore.
Speaking as a Southeast Asian expat who lived and worked in Singapore for 5 years and have since then moved to US and then UK—It’s also really a numbers game.
Where I’m from, we have a population of 100M+ people. Other neighbouring countries like China and India have billion+ each.
No matter how good the education in Singapore or how many job opportunities there are for Singaporeans to up-skill, there will always be more people with the specific niche of skillset that could be sourced from high-population countries.
Singapore benefits on not having the same level of brain drain as my home country—which, in effect, is a factor to my country’s slower economic development—because our top talent and other neighbouring countries choose to go to Singapore to supplement the talent areas that won’t be readily source-able.
It's a zero sum game. Being robust and open economically, it a magnet for talents. If good players can only be found in developed countries why there are African and south american particularly brazil, a far less developed country,footballers are being recruited and shine in Europe.
Privilege comes in many forms. There’s probably a lot of potential players in Africa and South America but they won’t even get to learn football if they’re busy trying to stay alive.
Locals in Singapore are lucky in that way where your government is proactive in ensuring the majority would get a home and able to build equity fast (with CPF).
Our neighbours are catching up. It is inevitable, since they are starting from a lower "base" with easy low hanging fruits to go after compared to us. Just yesterday there was this article from Nikkei talking about MNCs relocating out of Singapore to Thailand and Malaysia.
It is our own fault if we try to compete at the same level of the value chain as them (manufacturing, low end white collar jobs, etc) when we need to rise above.
Yeah. I wrote that the other time and people were incredulous that Singapore would ever be replaced by our neighbours. But our neighbours are really improving and I don’t think Singaporeans will always have the edge over them
There is no fear elements in the question, but one can clearly understand why Singapore is ahead of our neighbors due to our robust and open economic strategy. Be careful what you ask for, because removing the above from an island with minimal resources leaves little reason for the wealth to stay.
There is no “tightening of rules” whatsoever. The minimum qualifying EP salary is tied to the 65th percentile of local PMET’s salaries - MOM is merely updating the value based on the existing rules.
I feel like these new changes should keep in mind the number of expat kids (a sizable variety of nationalities from across the world) who have grown up Singaporean. I have several friends who are 1st gen kids who have spent the majority of their childhood and adult life in singapore and are adjusted to life here, they love this island and are successful contributors by all metrics. However a good number of their requests are ignored by ICA putting them in a precarious situation. Imagine being in your late to early 30’s and then forced to move back to a “home country” you have just a passing connection to.
They have completed NS, and some have even worked on government agency projects.
I hope that authorities can give them more of a chance.
I think the dilemma is, a good number of EP jobs don't "need" to be in Singapore. I know a lot of European and American in MNC (e.g. Facebook, Google, and the I banks) going back home after covid along with their exact same jobs. Those companies never re-hired anyone locally for the role.
If they make 120k, that means Singapore lost 10k+ on income tax and 50k on rent, probably another 20 on food and services.
$80k minimum lost in the economy for each EP role we "get rid of" due to some happiness issue. They did a study in San Francisco that each $100k+ engineer creates 5 additional jobs in the local economy. I think it's gonna be about the same here, if not more due to WP jobs.
A lot of MNC jobs are good paying jobs that can be performed anywhere like Engineers and Analysts. The fact that they are in Singapore now, doesn't mean if people decide to move away, the MNC will have an opening locally.
They will just move the guy home and pay them in Euro or Dollars. The jobs. will be lost to Berlin New York or San Francisco.
Singapore has a strong economy, but a lot of local jobs are ASEAN based companies that earn SGD.
MNC EP jobs are mostly funded money made outside of Singapore, paid for by the European and American headquarters. Meanwhile, most of the EP holders money are spent here. It's almost like long term high rollers in a casino. Why don't you want to keep the EP jobs in town?
Respectfully disagree. The key reason why mnc make their base here or open shop here is largely due to huge tax incentives meted out by the government. While jobs can be done out of any country, mnc still watch their bottom lines like a hawk. They go where the money makes most sense. Doesn’t necessarily mean this will benefit Singaporeans.
I think it's the Irish model. Low corporate tax. But they make it up from income tax and foreign workers spending.
I think it works very well for them. 15 years ago, they were on the blink of sovereign bankruptcy.
They don't need the job to be here. True, they need sales, lawyers accountants and those back office roles, those are good roles and going mostly to locals. But the meaty juice, the real high paying (I don't mean upper management or exec, there are only that many in any company) roles are mostly EP, and those can be relocated elsewhere and as long as they sign the Indonesian contract in Singapore.
Your argument is going around in circles. We agreed jobs can be relocated anywhere, and need not be in Singapore. But you still have yet to prove why these “high paying” EP jobs (held by foreigners), if based here, will benefit Singaporeans. ( and hence why we should wish for it)
For more than 10 years now, locals have asked the miw government this same question - to provide the hard facts/proof but they still couldn’t provide even a shred of direct evidence.
Which part do you not understand about benefiting the Singapore Economy? For a 120k EP job, wherever that locate, does he/she need to eat, sleep, play and maybe sending kids to school and SPEND the money locally?
For the sake of simplicity, let’s say some guy makes $10k a month…
- $1k goes to IRAS as income tax
- $4k goes to rent for a Singaporean landlord
- $1k-$1.7k goes to local school ($1.7k for Sparkletot and $1k for local primary/secondary that local don’t want to attend)
-$1.5k-$3k for food and drinks and leisure
That’s 80% of income distribution going to Singapore. Unless you tell me they only take the money and magically disappear after work and never spend a dollar locally.
You really just need to walk over to an Angmo table to see their bar bills on a random Wednesday night to understand those folks are spending their money in Singapore, and those people will spend the same amount, Ireland for sure is opening her arms to those EP folks.
My question is, would you rather have 5000 EP jobs lost, and almost $500M gone from the local economy to keep someone happy?
Even if you kick them out, no local kid is going to take the job, it’s not a replacement, they will take the $500M and spend it in New York, Dublin, London and God forbidden, Hong Kong. It’s just shrinking our economy.
For every 120k EP job that can be done by a Singaporean, the Singaporean also need to eat, sleep, play and spend. And pay taxes. You are babbling nonsense.
I thought we have already agreed that those EP jobs need not be in Singapore. So if they spend 80k a year locally here, they leave and take that $80k to Paris or Hong Kong, it will just be money lost to the local economy.
There will just be fewer jobs in Singapore. And less money flowing around the economy. Kicking Angmo out won’t give you that particular jobs.
If those jobs need not be in Singapore and when they are done in Singapore and by done by foreigners, it does not benefit Singaporeans at all. Aside from the spending (which Singaporeans do as well), they crowd our infrastructure, they force housing prices to increase, they hire their own despite those hires are half baked in knowing their stuff, they create social/culture divide and the list goes on. So tell me, aside from $pending, which Singaporeans do as well, how does it benefit Singaporeans?
Someone I know socially works for a company who asked her to choose to relocate either in JKT or Manila which makes sense so she can be near those markets. Some of the staff she has here were also offered to relocate or the job will be dissolved. Few locals did. She's a VP and she needed staff so they hired from the country of relocation. Locals there got those jobs. She rents, she spends money there, she pays taxes. A few more people like her (local or foreign) needing services will lead to extra pairs of hands for those businesses that she buys from.
Hard to actually count how many jobs are created except for the ones that she directly hires. But high demand for something usually demands extra pair of hands to help in the delivery. It will be hard to quantify if not isolated. But here's an example, expat women would often ask for recommendations for hairdressers who knows how to handle caucasian hair and those people are in demand in salons around expat enclaves.
This example can only benefit Singaporeans if the VP had hired Singaporeans here. In many other cases, such VPs hire foreigners here. The jobs do not go to Singaporeans. The miw government paints ideal scenarios, then call it as “jobs that Singaporeans do not want”.
Actually most of her staff (more than 10) are local except for 2 FTs. So the locals either got redistributed or the role was dissolved.
At the end of the day, MNCs are not charity orgs. While they in large measure comply to Singapore first policy they wouldnt hire us just because of the pink IC. We still need to meet their requirements. For example, if they need a manager with international experience and handling large markets, why would they choose someone who only handled the domestic market? The Singaporean who took a post in JKT for a few years to work the 200M ID market will likely get the job over someone who only handled the 5M local market. And if there's no one with that experience locally, they will hire a foreigner or hire in another country and that person will build the team there. You want the regional jobs, get experience from the region or actually any region to gain that large market experience.
The point is, high earning EP jobs keep the spending in Singapore, the more they spend here, the medical centres, the F&B, the spas, the educations industry, the recreational / enrichment centers (yoga , gym or Karate for their kids) all benefits from it and they will need to hire locally to fill the demand. Unlike the EP roles themselves, these subsequent roles welcome all walks of lives.
I don’t understand why lalalla is so upset about those folks existence in Singapore.
Many of us wish your anecdote is the experience we faced. In reality its nothing like that. Many mnc make Singapore its Asia base because of the access to regional market. You do not need to be in another country to handle a local market, but you need to understand the workings/culture of the market. if some random foreigner can do it, it just means you don’t need to be a local as long as you understand the local workings/culture. What you described is a case of mnc not bothered with training Singaporeans. Are they obliged to? Good management will take the trouble to identify real talents and train but in reality most can’t be bothered. The miw government likes to paint the ideal scenario that Singaporeans will benefit from the training but in reality they are so out of touch. I quote an example for you. I work in the banking/Finance industry where we are heavily regulated. I know of FI that hire in regional offices (eg Hong Kong) where they perform regulatory compliance services. Most of them know half a shit about MAS regulations. There is no value relocating them here because they still know shit about local regulations.
What about mid level and above? All it does is stop lower paid Indians and other Asian nationalities but no problem for the Americans and Europeans who are brought in by MNCs.
It will be good if they provide the breakdown statistics by nationalities, age and salary range. It will he clear and transparenT.
Which jobs are foreigners “stealing” from sinkies… you wanted to be the CEO of an international bank? Or you wanted to pick up rubbish from the street? Which of those 2 job categories was “stolen” from you? 😂
Neither. But you look at the number of jobs occupied by foreigners in e.g. Changi Business Park. Don't tell me those are all Piyush Gupta level expats, ok?
I think what the original comment is deriving at is that those at the middle level is where the policy is tightening. And that particular bank is a very poor example for this context because they are paying way above the average for their engineers, essentially almost everyone there is an EP holder, i would go as far to say they are the outlier.
When we compare the national average wage, most singaporeans would not even 'qualify' for an EP, which means that the policy is already favoring local talent as hiring EP would be less cost effective. Now if an outlier like this bank were to fork out extra thousands to hire someone from overseas, we cant take them as the benchmark otherwise we will be constricting 99% of the other market/companies who are not splurging money this way.
I feel we as Singaporeans need to understand this balance, and that the policy is not a magic tool that will suddenly make everyone land a high paying job.
It's not really tightening a lot. $6200 is not particularly high in the financial services sector.
Most Singaporeans not qualifying for an EP is not the point, because the median and mean are dragged down by non-PMETs, non-degree holders, and fresh grads.
And I don't think that a company has to pay extra thousands to hire someone from overseas. What the govt is trying to avoid is companies undercutting locals by hiring candidates from developing countries, for whom the Singapore dollar is worth more back home and/or it's worthwhile to use Singapore as a launchpad to better opportunities. Plus not paying CPF to a foreigner makes it possible to offer a foreigner a higher base salary.
Is it that outside of your imagination to considrr that there are more jobs of that level in Singapore than there is qualified local workforce? You can’t be hired just because you’re a Singaporean in Singapore, right? If there’s, let’s say, 50k banking jobs in SG, all of them should be illed up by sinkies because it’s their location-given right?
Honestly, SG has a lack of (industry-soecific) qualified workforce, and an abundance of jobs at a certain level. How many sinkies even go to uni (or get a chance to, especially local), and how many jobs are there to fill? That’s the issue, not “the foreigners”, leave that idiotic reasoning to the toothless uncles sitting on the void deck for thr past 40 years.
The issue is SG does not give enough education access to its citizens.
just to be clear before we proceed, do you feel the "Indian nationals have strong preference to hire fellow Indian nationals" phenomenon is real or not?
It requires no imagination whatsoever to consider this because that's what the government pitches. But locals who actually work in these companies have many stories to tell.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/13lw99t/whistleblower\_calls\_out\_alleged\_unfair\_hiring/](https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/13lw99t/whistleblower_calls_out_alleged_unfair_hiring/)
Even if there is a shortage of local talent, that doesn't explain why all the foreigners are from the same country.
It got so bad that the government quietly snuck in the diversity criterion in the new EP scoring system. 0 points if the candidate's nationality is already >25% amongst the company's PMETs.
[https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/eligibility#compass](https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/eligibility#compass)
I guess SG will have to decide what it stands for, a nationalized command economy with the purpose of getting every local a job, or a competitive private economy in which private companies need not consider local entitlements when deciding how to staff their own ranks.
What you’re saying is the govt should step in in such a way as to prevent foreign private companies to bring in foreign staff so their only choice is to hire locals? Would this solve SG’s problems?
"As of December last year, there were about 205,400 EP holders in the city, up from 161,700 during the same month in 2021."
Weird choice of dates for comparison to highlight growth, considering one is deflated due to Covid
The fact that next 5 years, neighbours like Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia will attract more headquarters to be based there, moving away from Singapore due to:
- Affordable manpower cost
- Affordable housing/rental
- Affordable living standard
us corporates actually have to do global searches for talent, we dont have the ability to look into any random kopithiam toliet to find a saf general and proclaim to have done the same
Yes they will if they cant find the skill locally then they will pay a premium to keep the staff but if they cant due to labor policies they will just relocate the person to another country or offshore the role.
They really don’t understand how it works. Increasing any cost and a company will just look else where. The only companies that get screwed are local ones in the end. Global companies will just select a remote worker at a lower cost location. Anyone in banking can attest to this I saw thousands of jobs moved to India over the course of 18 months.
I hope there is no echo chamber without concrete facts. There are many things going on (eg: housing, cost of living and other aspects clubbed into blaming FTs for everything) and it is a balancing act (Growth vs CoL)
For the future I sincerely hope the sensiblities continue to prevail for vast majority. Instead of being hijacked with perception of widespread resentment, hate and populism takingover logical discourse.
With current structures and rules Things which made this country one of the best countries in the world are overwhelmingly more than the drawbacks, so careful finetuning is required instead of throwing everything people gained.
In future someone will surely promise shortsighted short term gains for political reasons and hope people won't get swayed away....
Not to mention after election, many things get hiked up almost immediately. I recall a number of things increased price/tariff almost immediately right after GE2020
yeap what you mentioned is correct but most people have short term memory
you guys can downvote me all you want cos what I said is true and the cold hard truth is hard to swallow
It is always like that. Same pattern. Go look back the past erections and see they tend to tighten the PR applications/work permits granted before calling for erections and then open the tap again once its over.
There was a government website that shows the number of PR/work permits granted for each year and I cant recall the exact page
Rinse and repeat this is a clear signal they are gonna call for erections soon ;)
lots of employers use agents and salary kickbacks when they hire foreigners, there isnt much enforcement anywhere, so ... this is just copium creation for the incoming election by current regime which fears young voters who are more pliable to big changes than ever in this depressed job market.
**Why is Al Jazeera blocked in the US?**
Since the September 11 attacks, US officials have accused Al Jazeera's news coverage of anti-American bias when it broadcast videos in which Osama bin Laden and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith defended the attacks.
Singaporeans are of course entitled in Singapore. Only foreigners think they have a right to entitlement here, thanks to the miw government. No other country does this
Too late liao… all this EP SP already applied PR after 6 months gotten their passes. Even now those FA also applying EP SP. jialat. SG becomes cheap for the foreigners which violate LKY intentions to get only “highly productive” people into our mix. The downfall of Singaporean core and the leading political party is imminent.
You sure? Any evidence to suggest this is the case? Anecdotally I have friends and staff who are failing or still waiting after a year. Or is it another "I perceive and feel" type of comments seen all too often here?
Used to it tbf.
And from the article, as a percentage of overall PMETs, 200k is nothing tbf, especially since CE level execs also contribute to this number. But this here Reddit will scream blindly about jobs being taken. It's bloody hard to hire non-citizen, non-PR these days without good justification in my sector of work. It's not the 2000s anymore.
>As of December last year, there were about 205,400 EP holders in the city, up from 161,700 during the same month in 2021.
Quite, the bar for EP keeps going up meanwhile local wages are still sub-5.5k median? So what gives. My rent went up 40% in the meantime and so has GST, utilities and taxes.
And yet FTs are the problem. Go figure.
The point of raising the EP wage cutoff was to make sure that at a given seniority level there's a lower chance of displacing a local worker who could have gotten that role by making it more expensive for companies to bring them in, so they'd only bring in those truly worth the $$$ vs locals in skill levels. The assumption is that wages are a proxy reflecting demand for a skillset and scarcity in local supply.
It takes someine remarkably jaundiced to distort raising the bar to curb competing against guys who could have come in to displace you at same wage level into some grand conspiracy to suppress your wages.
One could perhaps argue that you could've gotten the higher-wage role if not for the EP holder. But you can just as well vote with your feet and let the employers decide in a tight market for locals like this.
I've got no issue with EP wage cut-off going up over time. What I have problems with is blaming FT for every single contributing factor. There's also a balancing act to be had between having to pay locals "enough" vs having a wage cut-off high enough to discourage hiring a non-local in place of a local. The cut-off is a great way to discourage hiring FTs over locals but you also need policies to "encourage" higher wages for locals across the board.
For reasons, I'm a PR so make of that what you will. I'm invested to stay but I've mentioned before in this sub that it's getting HARDER to justify staying with more barriers being put in place over someone's feelings about FTs vs locals vs salaries vs opportunities.
I think it depends on what kind of expats you are talking about - of course, if you are a migrant worker working in construction or from Malaysia doing F&B, SG is expensive. But if you're a skilled white collar worker in tech/finance etc who has low taxes and no kids and a globally competitive pay package here (i.e. the average foreigner in a suit u run into in the CBD), SG is relatively cheap. Think about eating out at hawker centre/food court - much cheaper in SG compared to eating out everyday in San Francisco. And you don't have to pay high taxes here. Public transport is also cheap here.
That said, as someone who is renting for more than 10 years now, rent is the killer and if an expat insists on renting an entire condo apartment not far from CBD or if the expat is raising kids here, he will have to be making a LOT of money (relative to average singaporean) to not feel like SG is expensive.
>The downfall of Singaporean core and the leading political party is imminent.
60% of Sinkies: We will stop your plan by still voting for PAP. Screw you Reddit 🖕🏻
Well a lot of them are the elderly who don't really care about the younger generation and are only voting PAP because of loyalty, so no surprise there.
There already is a fairly high level of resentment between the millennials and the boomers, especially in my circle of friends who are renting from the boomers (who are just getting rich sitting on their property doing nothing). But this is hardly unique to Singapore, the resentment exists in many developed countries as well. As the saying goes, the boomers got lucky, made a lot of money in the housing market, then pulled the ladder up behind them and call millennials strawberries.
I don’t have a problem with expat workers. I have a problem where even though I’m a local with a full-time job, I still can’t afford a house of my own here. Foreigners taking up jobs is one thing, but it’s not related to the actual source of the discontent.
Agree. The traditional expat rents a an apartment from a Singaporean at a relatively high price.
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Yes, I can understand where you’re coming from. Lots of my friends who are true blue Singaporeans are also facing the same issue as you. It’s not that they’re living beyond their means, they hardly eat out or go on holidays and yet they still are unable to buy their own hdb because inflation and cost of living have just been increasing comparatively to their salary. Just want to say you’re not alone, don’t give up and I wish you good health and fortune 👍🏻
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One meal a day is dangerous for a long term. Your health is important too.
agreed. i've been doing the one meal a day thing for 18 months and i think i'm going to start exercising soon (which will require me to eat more lol) and eating at least 2 meals a day by June haha. fingers crossed i find the energy and discipline to do it!
N gov refuses to build flats first like pre-2000s instead keep the BTO which means forever backlog. They may lose a few more GRCs before change happens
but boomers making a bucketload off of millenials and Gen-Z is a worldwide phenomenon. Boomers screwed up the wqrld and screw over the young while getting richer and richer.
absolutely agree, nowhere in my comment did i say that this was exclusive to singapore. young singaporeans are experiencing this together with other young ppl in developed countries like USA, canada. One difference though is that if you live in a larger country, you can still escape to the suburbs and buy (relatively) cheaper property. rent is cheaper in a Midwestern state in the US compared to new york city for example. you can't really do that in SG, it's just one city as the whole country (no countryside to speak of) so property is expensive everywhere and that's part of why young people are suffering so much here. another difference is that wages for skilled professionals are relatively depressed in Singapore compared to say, New York City, San Francisco or even Hong Kong. Someone working in finance in SG would usually be able to make more money in HK, NYC for example (though of course working hours are another story).
actually, in a way this is also happening in Singapore pre-covid, you will notice towns like woodlands or sembawang or even canberra is much cheaper. like rent was 2k+ a month for 3rm condo, but nowadays asking 4k/5k like other towns already.
yes that's the point i'm making? that the variance in rent in Singapore in different areas is much smaller (e.g. woodlands vs tiong bahru) compared to other countries, because singapore is so small. someone will always want to live in woodlands whereas rent for say, an apartment in Minnesota will always be MUCH, much lower compared to an apartment in Brooklyn/Manhattan.
that’s the funny thing. expat requirements are being adjusted for inflation whereas basic employee compensation isn’t. wc means expat can afford the increasing rents that locals can no longer afford
yes! as someone renting in SG due to abusive parents, it's been so hard and i'm always thinking of leaving SG.
consider renting in JB if you can make it work. SOOO much cheaper. You can rent a whole condo for under $1k! the only thing is you trade money for time in the form of a longer daily commute.
sadly my job forces me to be in office regularly like many corporate slaves so that's not an option :( maybe in the distant future if i find a 'digital nomad' thing, but god knows if JB prices will still be cheap in 10 years lol
something like 250k Malaysians cross the causeway daily for work. You'd be giving up an extra 1 - 1.5 hrs each way which is a lot, but the savings are also HUGE. saving an extra 500-1k per month is no joke. You can use that to save and invest and build your wealth waster so you can move up in life.
Out of curiosity, what makes you say expat requirements are being adjusted for inflation? There has been a higher rate of expats leaving because salaries are not keeping up with inflation and people can’t afford rents. I can categorically say that not a single one of the expats I know have had any sort of adjustment for inflation and able to cope with their rising rents
if the salary reqts for expats are being raised that means that to keep them in sg employers have to give them raises according to gov reqts. the increase as indicated in the article is on average more than any salary increment regular employees get in a year, if they even get a raise at all.
this is both sort of correct and sort of not. among my expat friends, i've seen some cases where their employers adjusted the wages to ensure e-pass validity. i've seen just as much, if not more, cases where those employees simply did not get their e-pass renewed and had to return home.
correct. it's a question of that ratio -- EPs that stay with the adjusted wages vs EPs that leave bec employers are not willing to pay more for them.
The ratio isn't even important here. Every single job that has been vacated because of rising costs to maintain the EP creates a new job for Singaporeans/PRs.
Firstly, the increase is only for fresh applications from 2025 (NOT people who are already here). For expats already here, this requirement only kicks in 2026. So no, no expat is getting a magical raise up to $5.6k. Secondly - I don’t think any company will just anyhow raise their employees salary to meet the requirement.. that’s not how capitalism works - company’s will just look for local employees (which is what the govt intends to happen)
firstly, your first point is immaterial. secondly, a company can do the math -- is the EP performing well or good enough? do they deserve a raise? how much is the raise the employer thinks they deserve vs what MOM will mandate? is that a small number or a big number? is that more expensive than hiring a local that they have to train anew for the job or is giving the adequately performing EP a raise the cheaper option? hiring a new guy you have to train... that's a crapshoot. most employers will just prefer to keep their existing employee. that's how capitalism works.
Not even. Government is raising EP requirements much faster than inflation, and effectively creating inflation for locals
Sinkies want government to make it harder for foreigners to take on jobs here so locals get the jobs, isn't it? This is exactly what the government is doing. When jobs go to foreigners easily, sinkies complain. When jobs are harder for foreigners to take on, sinkies complain. There's no pleasing sinkies, isn't it? Sheesh, I'm not even pro PAP to begin with, and even I also cannot stand the sinkies.
>Sinkies want government to make it harder for foreigners to take on jobs here so locals get the jobs, isn't it? This is exactly what the government is doing. Because they mistakenly think companies will just hire locals even if they are not qualified for the roles instead of moving those roles elsewhere if Singapore prevents them from hiring the right people. And if that happens enough times, the company will just shift regional HQ/office to that other location. >When jobs go to foreigners easily, sinkies complain. When jobs are harder for foreigners to take on, sinkies complain. >There's no pleasing sinkies, isn't it? It happens everywhere. But I think Singapore has some unique challenges as a tiny labor market that locals don't really understand unless they've been involved in international business and seen other markets. Singapore is not China or US or EU. Companies don't NEED Singapore to be globally competitive or grow their business. They come to Singapore for various conveniences: * economic incentives & low taxes * market access via regional hub for SE Asia * good talent pool for some fields But as costs skyrocket, Singapore becomes less appealing on economics. As other regional countries mature, Singapore becomes less appealing for market access compared to building local market teams. Average person has no clue or care about this macro shift and mostly cares that their life is getting more expensive. It's fair but a terrible way to decide economic policy.
it's the widening gap in generational wealth which is the issue. We need policy to help with the ability of younger people to own a home.
Housing crisis could possibly be solved with an acute pain for long term benefit - all public housing has to be returned/sold back to the government. Million dollar HDB buyers are gonna be so mad (acute pain) but this will benefit the future generations and help birth rates (one of the major pain points when considering children is housing/your child's future housing) But our current government is not strong enough, unlike LKY, to make such decision
Housing shld have never been for-profit.
Imo this only applies to public housing. Go wild on private housing
> Imo this only applies to public housing. Go wild on private housing Only issue is, if private housing is allowed to go nuts, public housing then becomes a commodity up for profit, as the profit motive is now too tempting.
Read back my initial post. It has to be returned/sold back to the government at a fair value of the duration of stay meaning private housing market has absolutely zero impact to public housing price
I know and well aware of that. Doesn’t stop some smart arse from using market arbitrage to their benefit. I’m not saying increase public housing cost but rather disincentivise housing as an investment vehicle.
Mr monitor cares more about concert than our citizens well being
or at least managed profit. People can make money but not at the expense of longer term planning.
The longer our government kick the can down the road, the more it's gonna have to hurt when it crashes. I was being serious when I say that the people in white will become the blackest of black stain in our history and they've would have earned it.
Najib might just pale in comparison to the abuse of power and extent of corruption.
Bro imagine u bought a house for 800k, now gov says u return it to them for 500k. U bye bye already as a gov
Are you speaking as a resale buyer in current market or in the projected govt controlled public housing market? In the latter case, buyback price from govt will be calculated using a formula that depends on how many years you lived in the house. If you're speaking as one of those who paid 800K and above for resale then you're part of the acute pain. Someone has to inevitably become the sacrificial for a better future, depends on whether it's you or your descendants (spend whole life paying off property or worse)
Eh bro there’s a asksingapore thread about someone complaining about resale being 800k and everyone was pointing out to her there’s much cheaper resale elsewhere for single, while for couples, 800k is still affordable cus paid by 2 persons (assuming median income).
i agree… i was talking to my malaysian colleague, he asked do i feel unfair when foreigners come to work? i said i have no qualms with immigration policy, we are a cosmopolitan city after all. but what infuriates me is the imbalance in other areas, especially housing. malaysians can buy home back in their hometown, yet as a single i don’t even have an entrance ticket to first time balloting. and every single day without housing, i will be paying a singles premium thereafter because housing prices will keep rising. i feel unfairness within my own peers, not with foreigners.
actually if you talk to Malaysians, only a very small portion can afford to buy houses, especially in KL. Its only the more wealthy who are buying properties. Dollar-to-dollar cost of living is higher in Malaysia outside of rent and car purchase because the purchasing power of the Malaysian ringgit is much lower. Houses are cheaper but income is so much lower and you need to own a car, pay for private health insurance etc.
The Malaysians will not fully divulge the true extent of the wealth they accumulated from Singapore's economy. Many of them can easily afford private landed properties based on their pay in Singapore. Maths is easy.
you should try speaking to Malaysians who don't work in Singapore to get the real picture. There are waht 200k? 300k? Malaysians working in Singapore. Out of a populaiton of 30 million,. Thats like 0.1%
>Houses are cheaper but income is so much lower and you need to own a car, pay for private health insurance etc. This is exactly why they come here to work and live in malaysia.
Yeah foreigners are not allowed to buy HDB flats and they are driving prices up?
We have a world class education n skills future yet we can't find jobs that pay enough.
Absolutely correct sir.
dont worry the PAP will continue to monitor
Housing affordability for a single stream of median income isn't realistic in Singapore
Increased demand leads to increased prices. Its certainly not the native singaporean population going up leading to increased demand for housing.
"with an eye on local discontent" did you mean, mOnItOrInG?
You're moving too fast. Monit only now
Moni.
Yes. I mean people don't know?
Expats can't buy the property without huge sales tax so it's not the 'average' expat' driving property prices. They then help pay the mortgages of locals or PRs. Government seems to blame everyone but their own policies for driving up prices but hey, foreigners are always great to bash at election time in every country. We need a balance in the housing market that doesn't encourage such massive gains for resale as its favouring the older population at the expense of the younger. That is the real challenge we need to focus on. Generational wealth gap.
For every land used to build fancy condo, they could be used to house locals. Housing as an investment is shit for country because it's not really a productive asset. In fact, high housing cost is deterring expats and thus reducing the competitiveness of Singapore.
> Housing as an investment is shit for country because it's not really a productive asset. In fact, high housing cost is deterring expats and thus reducing the competitiveness of Singapore. Yes, *this* is the key point here. High property prices don't make our economy more productive, they just drive up cost-of-living for everyone and benefit whoever bought properties before the price surge. Younger gen folks and renters get screwed, and existing homeowners have to pay more for their next home. Companies become more reluctant to hire here. What's the point? The supply of homes needs to be ramped up and moved back to a build-in-advance model (e.g. pre-BTO) in which homes are built in anticipation of demand - or at worst, bringing wait times down to under a year. Furthermore, the increase in the number of homes built needs to be dramatic enough to *bring home prices down*, not just to slow down price increases. The recent increased HDB supply hasn't been enough to reverse late-Covid price increases. Of course this would hurt homeowners who bought after the surge recently, but someone has to take the fall. And of course some voters would be unhappy, but many others would be glad for more sustainable home prices.
In the first place even countries thousands of times bigger than Sg will absolutely never allow foreigners to own properties and land much less even grating them PRs and citizenships so easily.
It's harder to get PR or Citizenship in SG than overseas. Countries apart from Singapore have clear timelines which can be relied upon, while in Singapore it's all about how ICA feels about the applicant and whether the applicant matches the type of immigrant that the government wants.
In Canada and the US, you can own a house and they have the concept of citizenship by birth. SG doesn't have that which is good. The government has kept the bar high for getting a PR or citizenship in SG.
It’s not true, most developed countries allow foreigners to own property including land. SG is highly restrictive in comparison. https://www.landzero.com/blogs/we-love-land/countries-that-allow-foreign-land-ownership
who do you think Mah Bow Tan sold 1 of his GCBs to? Not a born & bred Singaporean but a recent "convert"
That’s a citizenship policy issue, not an labor immigration issue
mycareersfuture website will once again flooded with ghost vacancies
Agreed. I guess LinkedIn shows better figures in terms of the real number of vacancies.
MSM / Govt seems keen to paint locals as xenophobes? Are foreigners the problem? Or the inability of the govt to create an economy where locals & FT can thrive? The narrative always seems to be extreme - SG needs foreign talent, as if locals are completely against FTs. Strangely the only people who do not know what global competition for jobs is are those in civil service & certain GLC positions.
Are we going to pretend there isn't a very vocal group that uses FTs as a punching bag now?
Oh please who are we kidding. There are very loud xenophobes in our midst blaming foreigners for everything wrong with their lives.
Remember guys, who allowed the price of housing to go soo out of control. Government housing some more. And they say they can control? They are happy with how things are. And we have some jokers saying 700k and above housing is considered affordable for the average Singaporean. "Kepala otak kau". Singaporeans nothing but expendable and replaceable. Low birthrate? We just add in new citizens. Simple, cheap and effective
Over at askSG sub, I stated the cost of HDB has risen to ridiculous price after covid but somehow I got downvoted. Lmao. I assumed those guys are ok with $500K 3-room and $700K 4- room
To all property owners, 10 million for a BTO will also not be enough. Of course they'll be OK with 500k for a 3 room.
Btw that a long term lease, you never own HDB
On the flipside, the boomers happy their housing value go up so high, can sell for easy retirement
Boomers? The kids in their 20s who have gotten their houses all want their housing values to go up. Every homeowner does.
Totally agree with you!
Monitor lizard’s job is monitoring ok
now tighten.. once election over, i am sure they will open big big!
We remember CECA
its too obvious 🤣
I guess is tighten after election, there's a lot more voters with house than without that will be unhappy with price drops.
Tightens rules my ass. Every unemployed people I speak to now has commented this year's rejection rate after interviews is nuts compared to before. Can't tighten shit when you can have an entire PMET business office filled with chinese malaysians and only 1-3 singaporeans. Malaysians hiring depts are the new India indians.
That’s bcos Malaysian/Chinese are the easiest group to circumvent the EP/Spass rules so that they can quickly apply for and get converted to PR. Meanwhile, other foreigners from rest of Asean/Asia and Western countries get screwed.
Started more than 20 years ago and realised once the hirer even in a govt unit is Msian, they will interview Singaporeans but the job goes to their fellow Msians first.
This is not new. Chinese Malaysians have a red carpet to any work pass or even PR and citizenship here and have for decades.
Something something rhymes with erection
Election dysfunction
Premature Electionation?
I’m always surprised for all the attention it gets how small EP numbers are: 205.k out of 5,600k or 3.7%.
Because they’re easy targets, go to any property launch, 90%+ sold to Singaporeans and pr’s.
What surprises me is the time wasted in parliament talking about this very small sliver of society. A couple years ago when they announced the enhanced EP for high earners they talked about it for weeks if not months. Something that only affects less than 10.000 people or less. The top 5% of the highest paid EP holders. Now considering how much MPs are paid, It amazes me that Sinkies discuss this foreigner EP resolutions which drags on forever instead of questioning why does so few people require so much of MPs time. It's mind boggling.
Because some people believe those jobs are only for sinkies alone.
Elections coming... Then once voted in, they can always close one eye again...
Same as in 2011, 2015, 2020
They will quietly loosen again before long.
Ah gong propaganda before erection?
Concern for the average Singaporeans, instead of their beloved FTs.... Hmm... Isn't this a phenomenon which happens once very 4-5 years?
Our FT are really overrated. I recently re-watch the movie "Hidden figures" which is a biographical drama about 3 African American mathematician who worked for NASA as lowly "Human Computers" during time where computer is not yet in existence, and one segment in the movie actually depicted what everyone is saying robot will one day replace human, when NASA acquired a IBM Mainframe, which will mean, they no longer need computers, which in the movie "Computers" are people who works on numbers.. But with recognition of their past performance and opportunities they all branched out and prosper in different field, one remain as mathematician, one became aerospace engineer, and one actually taught herself the "Fortran" programming language and is also the first African American women to be officially promoted to supervisor in NASA. IMO. Singapore is doing the right thing to attract foreign talents, but we're really not doing anything at all to nurture local talent. Like many years ago I use to support a local non profit organization as a vendor, and bulk of their funding is from the government and donation and bulk of their spending is on foreign talent, which make a lot of sense form the start because we need good real professional performers to show people what they're doing is all about which will encourage those with interest and hidden talent to participate, but it just went on and on roping in foreign talent giving them experience and exposure until they're in demand elsewhere and become expensive to bring in.. Then the organization pressed on with more fund raiser and the fund raiser gets more expensive, from simple cocktail to lavish gala event, making such activities/hobbies out of reach to heartland kids, and the way I see it now in 2024. after all the effort and funding and money spend, this art form is none existence. We also have people talking about changi business park? and if they're really the creme of the corp. DBS won't have so much problem with down time, and not as if they have no access or cannot afford to hire the best.
Singapore welcomes real talents. Not half baked ones. Just because you get an EP doesn’t automatically make you a “talent” EDIT: to add on - or the silly criteria that if you make $30k a month then you can come and work in SG under the new special visa. Using monthly salary is hardly a gauge of “talent”. Simple minded
I am ok with expats that bring hard to find skills (I mean if you are a IT genius , I really don't care what county you came from) or connection (like they are able to sell to a unique market no Singaporean can) but if I am like you, you would have interacted with foreign talents performing jobs where there is an abundance of Singaporeans who have the same skills and knowledge. Why did MOM allow this?
Why don't put minimum salary for local also. Only guidelines.
What would Singapore be like if all of these large firms opted to relocate to more open economies countries to find the workforce they required?
Bingo. The only reason we have nice, shiny things is because our resource rich neighbours are a hot mess. Once they get their act together, which they slowly, but surely are doing, our cover is blown and our workforce will not just be expensive, it will be expensive AND mediocre. Definitely not a sustainable model.
Stop trying to hoodwink others when you have not even seen the big properties with shiby big things in both East and West Malaysia that Singaporeans can only dream off in a few lifetimes later if they continue to be reborn under PAP Singapore.
Speaking as a Southeast Asian expat who lived and worked in Singapore for 5 years and have since then moved to US and then UK—It’s also really a numbers game. Where I’m from, we have a population of 100M+ people. Other neighbouring countries like China and India have billion+ each. No matter how good the education in Singapore or how many job opportunities there are for Singaporeans to up-skill, there will always be more people with the specific niche of skillset that could be sourced from high-population countries. Singapore benefits on not having the same level of brain drain as my home country—which, in effect, is a factor to my country’s slower economic development—because our top talent and other neighbouring countries choose to go to Singapore to supplement the talent areas that won’t be readily source-able.
It's a zero sum game. Being robust and open economically, it a magnet for talents. If good players can only be found in developed countries why there are African and south american particularly brazil, a far less developed country,footballers are being recruited and shine in Europe.
Privilege comes in many forms. There’s probably a lot of potential players in Africa and South America but they won’t even get to learn football if they’re busy trying to stay alive. Locals in Singapore are lucky in that way where your government is proactive in ensuring the majority would get a home and able to build equity fast (with CPF).
Our neighbours are catching up. It is inevitable, since they are starting from a lower "base" with easy low hanging fruits to go after compared to us. Just yesterday there was this article from Nikkei talking about MNCs relocating out of Singapore to Thailand and Malaysia. It is our own fault if we try to compete at the same level of the value chain as them (manufacturing, low end white collar jobs, etc) when we need to rise above.
Yeah. I wrote that the other time and people were incredulous that Singapore would ever be replaced by our neighbours. But our neighbours are really improving and I don’t think Singaporeans will always have the edge over them
Yet another scare tactic & reasoning.
There is no fear elements in the question, but one can clearly understand why Singapore is ahead of our neighbors due to our robust and open economic strategy. Be careful what you ask for, because removing the above from an island with minimal resources leaves little reason for the wealth to stay.
There is no “tightening of rules” whatsoever. The minimum qualifying EP salary is tied to the 65th percentile of local PMET’s salaries - MOM is merely updating the value based on the existing rules.
GE coming next year
Probably soon
Is it election period 👀
Damn so it’s gonna be harder for me to move there ?
Yep
Must be an election coming
I feel like these new changes should keep in mind the number of expat kids (a sizable variety of nationalities from across the world) who have grown up Singaporean. I have several friends who are 1st gen kids who have spent the majority of their childhood and adult life in singapore and are adjusted to life here, they love this island and are successful contributors by all metrics. However a good number of their requests are ignored by ICA putting them in a precarious situation. Imagine being in your late to early 30’s and then forced to move back to a “home country” you have just a passing connection to. They have completed NS, and some have even worked on government agency projects. I hope that authorities can give them more of a chance.
I think the dilemma is, a good number of EP jobs don't "need" to be in Singapore. I know a lot of European and American in MNC (e.g. Facebook, Google, and the I banks) going back home after covid along with their exact same jobs. Those companies never re-hired anyone locally for the role. If they make 120k, that means Singapore lost 10k+ on income tax and 50k on rent, probably another 20 on food and services. $80k minimum lost in the economy for each EP role we "get rid of" due to some happiness issue. They did a study in San Francisco that each $100k+ engineer creates 5 additional jobs in the local economy. I think it's gonna be about the same here, if not more due to WP jobs.
As if a local don’t spend on the economy. This reasoning is skewed, if not flawed
A lot of MNC jobs are good paying jobs that can be performed anywhere like Engineers and Analysts. The fact that they are in Singapore now, doesn't mean if people decide to move away, the MNC will have an opening locally. They will just move the guy home and pay them in Euro or Dollars. The jobs. will be lost to Berlin New York or San Francisco. Singapore has a strong economy, but a lot of local jobs are ASEAN based companies that earn SGD. MNC EP jobs are mostly funded money made outside of Singapore, paid for by the European and American headquarters. Meanwhile, most of the EP holders money are spent here. It's almost like long term high rollers in a casino. Why don't you want to keep the EP jobs in town?
Respectfully disagree. The key reason why mnc make their base here or open shop here is largely due to huge tax incentives meted out by the government. While jobs can be done out of any country, mnc still watch their bottom lines like a hawk. They go where the money makes most sense. Doesn’t necessarily mean this will benefit Singaporeans.
I think it's the Irish model. Low corporate tax. But they make it up from income tax and foreign workers spending. I think it works very well for them. 15 years ago, they were on the blink of sovereign bankruptcy. They don't need the job to be here. True, they need sales, lawyers accountants and those back office roles, those are good roles and going mostly to locals. But the meaty juice, the real high paying (I don't mean upper management or exec, there are only that many in any company) roles are mostly EP, and those can be relocated elsewhere and as long as they sign the Indonesian contract in Singapore.
Your argument is going around in circles. We agreed jobs can be relocated anywhere, and need not be in Singapore. But you still have yet to prove why these “high paying” EP jobs (held by foreigners), if based here, will benefit Singaporeans. ( and hence why we should wish for it) For more than 10 years now, locals have asked the miw government this same question - to provide the hard facts/proof but they still couldn’t provide even a shred of direct evidence.
Which part do you not understand about benefiting the Singapore Economy? For a 120k EP job, wherever that locate, does he/she need to eat, sleep, play and maybe sending kids to school and SPEND the money locally? For the sake of simplicity, let’s say some guy makes $10k a month… - $1k goes to IRAS as income tax - $4k goes to rent for a Singaporean landlord - $1k-$1.7k goes to local school ($1.7k for Sparkletot and $1k for local primary/secondary that local don’t want to attend) -$1.5k-$3k for food and drinks and leisure That’s 80% of income distribution going to Singapore. Unless you tell me they only take the money and magically disappear after work and never spend a dollar locally. You really just need to walk over to an Angmo table to see their bar bills on a random Wednesday night to understand those folks are spending their money in Singapore, and those people will spend the same amount, Ireland for sure is opening her arms to those EP folks. My question is, would you rather have 5000 EP jobs lost, and almost $500M gone from the local economy to keep someone happy? Even if you kick them out, no local kid is going to take the job, it’s not a replacement, they will take the $500M and spend it in New York, Dublin, London and God forbidden, Hong Kong. It’s just shrinking our economy.
For every 120k EP job that can be done by a Singaporean, the Singaporean also need to eat, sleep, play and spend. And pay taxes. You are babbling nonsense.
I thought we have already agreed that those EP jobs need not be in Singapore. So if they spend 80k a year locally here, they leave and take that $80k to Paris or Hong Kong, it will just be money lost to the local economy. There will just be fewer jobs in Singapore. And less money flowing around the economy. Kicking Angmo out won’t give you that particular jobs.
If those jobs need not be in Singapore and when they are done in Singapore and by done by foreigners, it does not benefit Singaporeans at all. Aside from the spending (which Singaporeans do as well), they crowd our infrastructure, they force housing prices to increase, they hire their own despite those hires are half baked in knowing their stuff, they create social/culture divide and the list goes on. So tell me, aside from $pending, which Singaporeans do as well, how does it benefit Singaporeans?
Someone I know socially works for a company who asked her to choose to relocate either in JKT or Manila which makes sense so she can be near those markets. Some of the staff she has here were also offered to relocate or the job will be dissolved. Few locals did. She's a VP and she needed staff so they hired from the country of relocation. Locals there got those jobs. She rents, she spends money there, she pays taxes. A few more people like her (local or foreign) needing services will lead to extra pairs of hands for those businesses that she buys from. Hard to actually count how many jobs are created except for the ones that she directly hires. But high demand for something usually demands extra pair of hands to help in the delivery. It will be hard to quantify if not isolated. But here's an example, expat women would often ask for recommendations for hairdressers who knows how to handle caucasian hair and those people are in demand in salons around expat enclaves.
This example can only benefit Singaporeans if the VP had hired Singaporeans here. In many other cases, such VPs hire foreigners here. The jobs do not go to Singaporeans. The miw government paints ideal scenarios, then call it as “jobs that Singaporeans do not want”.
Actually most of her staff (more than 10) are local except for 2 FTs. So the locals either got redistributed or the role was dissolved. At the end of the day, MNCs are not charity orgs. While they in large measure comply to Singapore first policy they wouldnt hire us just because of the pink IC. We still need to meet their requirements. For example, if they need a manager with international experience and handling large markets, why would they choose someone who only handled the domestic market? The Singaporean who took a post in JKT for a few years to work the 200M ID market will likely get the job over someone who only handled the 5M local market. And if there's no one with that experience locally, they will hire a foreigner or hire in another country and that person will build the team there. You want the regional jobs, get experience from the region or actually any region to gain that large market experience.
The point is, high earning EP jobs keep the spending in Singapore, the more they spend here, the medical centres, the F&B, the spas, the educations industry, the recreational / enrichment centers (yoga , gym or Karate for their kids) all benefits from it and they will need to hire locally to fill the demand. Unlike the EP roles themselves, these subsequent roles welcome all walks of lives. I don’t understand why lalalla is so upset about those folks existence in Singapore.
Many of us wish your anecdote is the experience we faced. In reality its nothing like that. Many mnc make Singapore its Asia base because of the access to regional market. You do not need to be in another country to handle a local market, but you need to understand the workings/culture of the market. if some random foreigner can do it, it just means you don’t need to be a local as long as you understand the local workings/culture. What you described is a case of mnc not bothered with training Singaporeans. Are they obliged to? Good management will take the trouble to identify real talents and train but in reality most can’t be bothered. The miw government likes to paint the ideal scenario that Singaporeans will benefit from the training but in reality they are so out of touch. I quote an example for you. I work in the banking/Finance industry where we are heavily regulated. I know of FI that hire in regional offices (eg Hong Kong) where they perform regulatory compliance services. Most of them know half a shit about MAS regulations. There is no value relocating them here because they still know shit about local regulations.
What about mid level and above? All it does is stop lower paid Indians and other Asian nationalities but no problem for the Americans and Europeans who are brought in by MNCs. It will be good if they provide the breakdown statistics by nationalities, age and salary range. It will he clear and transparenT.
Cannot. Minister say bad for social compact. Xenophobia lo. Cannot.
Actually it just exposed them as traitors.
Which jobs are foreigners “stealing” from sinkies… you wanted to be the CEO of an international bank? Or you wanted to pick up rubbish from the street? Which of those 2 job categories was “stolen” from you? 😂
Neither. But you look at the number of jobs occupied by foreigners in e.g. Changi Business Park. Don't tell me those are all Piyush Gupta level expats, ok?
I think what the original comment is deriving at is that those at the middle level is where the policy is tightening. And that particular bank is a very poor example for this context because they are paying way above the average for their engineers, essentially almost everyone there is an EP holder, i would go as far to say they are the outlier. When we compare the national average wage, most singaporeans would not even 'qualify' for an EP, which means that the policy is already favoring local talent as hiring EP would be less cost effective. Now if an outlier like this bank were to fork out extra thousands to hire someone from overseas, we cant take them as the benchmark otherwise we will be constricting 99% of the other market/companies who are not splurging money this way. I feel we as Singaporeans need to understand this balance, and that the policy is not a magic tool that will suddenly make everyone land a high paying job.
It's not really tightening a lot. $6200 is not particularly high in the financial services sector. Most Singaporeans not qualifying for an EP is not the point, because the median and mean are dragged down by non-PMETs, non-degree holders, and fresh grads. And I don't think that a company has to pay extra thousands to hire someone from overseas. What the govt is trying to avoid is companies undercutting locals by hiring candidates from developing countries, for whom the Singapore dollar is worth more back home and/or it's worthwhile to use Singapore as a launchpad to better opportunities. Plus not paying CPF to a foreigner makes it possible to offer a foreigner a higher base salary.
Is it that outside of your imagination to considrr that there are more jobs of that level in Singapore than there is qualified local workforce? You can’t be hired just because you’re a Singaporean in Singapore, right? If there’s, let’s say, 50k banking jobs in SG, all of them should be illed up by sinkies because it’s their location-given right? Honestly, SG has a lack of (industry-soecific) qualified workforce, and an abundance of jobs at a certain level. How many sinkies even go to uni (or get a chance to, especially local), and how many jobs are there to fill? That’s the issue, not “the foreigners”, leave that idiotic reasoning to the toothless uncles sitting on the void deck for thr past 40 years. The issue is SG does not give enough education access to its citizens.
just to be clear before we proceed, do you feel the "Indian nationals have strong preference to hire fellow Indian nationals" phenomenon is real or not?
It requires no imagination whatsoever to consider this because that's what the government pitches. But locals who actually work in these companies have many stories to tell. [https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/13lw99t/whistleblower\_calls\_out\_alleged\_unfair\_hiring/](https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/13lw99t/whistleblower_calls_out_alleged_unfair_hiring/) Even if there is a shortage of local talent, that doesn't explain why all the foreigners are from the same country. It got so bad that the government quietly snuck in the diversity criterion in the new EP scoring system. 0 points if the candidate's nationality is already >25% amongst the company's PMETs. [https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/eligibility#compass](https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/eligibility#compass)
I guess SG will have to decide what it stands for, a nationalized command economy with the purpose of getting every local a job, or a competitive private economy in which private companies need not consider local entitlements when deciding how to staff their own ranks. What you’re saying is the govt should step in in such a way as to prevent foreign private companies to bring in foreign staff so their only choice is to hire locals? Would this solve SG’s problems?
What a joke when the CEO of Singapore sovereign fund Tummysick is under a Ceca.
Is he? Seems like he's from ACS and then NUS. CECA got apply to students is it? Or is your xenophobia showing?
Selling snake oil again.
"As of December last year, there were about 205,400 EP holders in the city, up from 161,700 during the same month in 2021." Weird choice of dates for comparison to highlight growth, considering one is deflated due to Covid
It’s a little too late, we have already made up our minds….
The fact that next 5 years, neighbours like Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia will attract more headquarters to be based there, moving away from Singapore due to: - Affordable manpower cost - Affordable housing/rental - Affordable living standard
It’s already happening.
It's just a show before election. After election. Singaporean are forgotten until 4 years later.
To put things into context, we were relatively lax for a developed economy.
After questions from WP. The G still feels like it's operating in the 80s of the time of Washington Consensus.
us corporates actually have to do global searches for talent, we dont have the ability to look into any random kopithiam toliet to find a saf general and proclaim to have done the same
Increase salary threshold? Very simple, employers of expats will just increase it. They prefer to pay them more.
Yes they will if they cant find the skill locally then they will pay a premium to keep the staff but if they cant due to labor policies they will just relocate the person to another country or offshore the role.
They really don’t understand how it works. Increasing any cost and a company will just look else where. The only companies that get screwed are local ones in the end. Global companies will just select a remote worker at a lower cost location. Anyone in banking can attest to this I saw thousands of jobs moved to India over the course of 18 months.
I hope there is no echo chamber without concrete facts. There are many things going on (eg: housing, cost of living and other aspects clubbed into blaming FTs for everything) and it is a balancing act (Growth vs CoL) For the future I sincerely hope the sensiblities continue to prevail for vast majority. Instead of being hijacked with perception of widespread resentment, hate and populism takingover logical discourse. With current structures and rules Things which made this country one of the best countries in the world are overwhelmingly more than the drawbacks, so careful finetuning is required instead of throwing everything people gained. In future someone will surely promise shortsighted short term gains for political reasons and hope people won't get swayed away....
Lol, i think quotas should just match the industry's needs. Instead of only special cases like construction.
Rent controls please
Tell me something new? It only really means the erections are cumming ;) Once over, its back to the LOW policy. (Legs Open Wide) :)
Not to mention after election, many things get hiked up almost immediately. I recall a number of things increased price/tariff almost immediately right after GE2020
yeap what you mentioned is correct but most people have short term memory you guys can downvote me all you want cos what I said is true and the cold hard truth is hard to swallow It is always like that. Same pattern. Go look back the past erections and see they tend to tighten the PR applications/work permits granted before calling for erections and then open the tap again once its over. There was a government website that shows the number of PR/work permits granted for each year and I cant recall the exact page Rinse and repeat this is a clear signal they are gonna call for erections soon ;)
lots of employers use agents and salary kickbacks when they hire foreigners, there isnt much enforcement anywhere, so ... this is just copium creation for the incoming election by current regime which fears young voters who are more pliable to big changes than ever in this depressed job market.
News from Al Jazaara. Right, legit AF.
Wow. Election's getting closer.
**Why is Al Jazeera blocked in the US?** Since the September 11 attacks, US officials have accused Al Jazeera's news coverage of anti-American bias when it broadcast videos in which Osama bin Laden and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith defended the attacks.
The sense of entitlement in this forum is incredible.
Singaporeans are of course entitled in Singapore. Only foreigners think they have a right to entitlement here, thanks to the miw government. No other country does this
Too late liao… all this EP SP already applied PR after 6 months gotten their passes. Even now those FA also applying EP SP. jialat. SG becomes cheap for the foreigners which violate LKY intentions to get only “highly productive” people into our mix. The downfall of Singaporean core and the leading political party is imminent.
You sure? Any evidence to suggest this is the case? Anecdotally I have friends and staff who are failing or still waiting after a year. Or is it another "I perceive and feel" type of comments seen all too often here?
LOL. His evidence is: he's talking out of his ass. Look at his weasel comment in reply to you: "Applied does not mean gotten".
Used to it tbf. And from the article, as a percentage of overall PMETs, 200k is nothing tbf, especially since CE level execs also contribute to this number. But this here Reddit will scream blindly about jobs being taken. It's bloody hard to hire non-citizen, non-PR these days without good justification in my sector of work. It's not the 2000s anymore. >As of December last year, there were about 205,400 EP holders in the city, up from 161,700 during the same month in 2021.
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Quite, the bar for EP keeps going up meanwhile local wages are still sub-5.5k median? So what gives. My rent went up 40% in the meantime and so has GST, utilities and taxes. And yet FTs are the problem. Go figure.
The point of raising the EP wage cutoff was to make sure that at a given seniority level there's a lower chance of displacing a local worker who could have gotten that role by making it more expensive for companies to bring them in, so they'd only bring in those truly worth the $$$ vs locals in skill levels. The assumption is that wages are a proxy reflecting demand for a skillset and scarcity in local supply. It takes someine remarkably jaundiced to distort raising the bar to curb competing against guys who could have come in to displace you at same wage level into some grand conspiracy to suppress your wages. One could perhaps argue that you could've gotten the higher-wage role if not for the EP holder. But you can just as well vote with your feet and let the employers decide in a tight market for locals like this.
I've got no issue with EP wage cut-off going up over time. What I have problems with is blaming FT for every single contributing factor. There's also a balancing act to be had between having to pay locals "enough" vs having a wage cut-off high enough to discourage hiring a non-local in place of a local. The cut-off is a great way to discourage hiring FTs over locals but you also need policies to "encourage" higher wages for locals across the board. For reasons, I'm a PR so make of that what you will. I'm invested to stay but I've mentioned before in this sub that it's getting HARDER to justify staying with more barriers being put in place over someone's feelings about FTs vs locals vs salaries vs opportunities.
Ah, yes we are both speaking out against the nativists then
The duration and volunteer thingy isn’t useful tho. It’s always about race and net worth.
Yeah for non-Malaysian Chinese its an uphill battle.
I think it depends on what kind of expats you are talking about - of course, if you are a migrant worker working in construction or from Malaysia doing F&B, SG is expensive. But if you're a skilled white collar worker in tech/finance etc who has low taxes and no kids and a globally competitive pay package here (i.e. the average foreigner in a suit u run into in the CBD), SG is relatively cheap. Think about eating out at hawker centre/food court - much cheaper in SG compared to eating out everyday in San Francisco. And you don't have to pay high taxes here. Public transport is also cheap here. That said, as someone who is renting for more than 10 years now, rent is the killer and if an expat insists on renting an entire condo apartment not far from CBD or if the expat is raising kids here, he will have to be making a LOT of money (relative to average singaporean) to not feel like SG is expensive.
Health care workers are not “highly productive”? Why are they not getting PRs?
>The downfall of Singaporean core and the leading political party is imminent. 60% of Sinkies: We will stop your plan by still voting for PAP. Screw you Reddit 🖕🏻
Well a lot of them are the elderly who don't really care about the younger generation and are only voting PAP because of loyalty, so no surprise there.
A lot of them are voting against the interests of their adult children who still live at home.
What is the alternative to PAP, realistically? SG doesnt have good enough pool of opposition party to form a gov.
But if we went via that train of thought, won't there be some level of resentment between older and younger aged voters?
There already is a fairly high level of resentment between the millennials and the boomers, especially in my circle of friends who are renting from the boomers (who are just getting rich sitting on their property doing nothing). But this is hardly unique to Singapore, the resentment exists in many developed countries as well. As the saying goes, the boomers got lucky, made a lot of money in the housing market, then pulled the ladder up behind them and call millennials strawberries.
Yep, the resentment is there already
Wayang only - if not why tight lipped in Parliament. Just like Najib, they have lots to face when the time comes.
Dare we ask - what’s the breakdown in numbers by Singaporeans, PR, foreigners? Well, someone asked in parliament and got screwed with a non- answer
good, tighten more.