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Coffeeshop Chit Chat - Tharman: FT helps inc income of S'porean</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
Subscribe </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=msgtable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="96%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msg vAlign=top><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"> </TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead vAlign=top><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>kojakbt_89 <NOBR></NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>7:29 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 2) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>29567.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>Tharman: Foreign workers increase income of low wage families
March 4, 2010 by admin
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http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/0...workers-increase-income-of-low-wage-families/
Written by Our Correspondent
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam ended the three day Budget “debate” with a key message to Singaporeans: Singapore cannot do away without foreign workers.
He repeated the circular argument mentioned earlier by other PAP ministers like PM Lee Hsien Loong that foreign workers are needed in sectors shunned by Singaporeans:
“If we had not brought them in, we would not have been able to ease the supply bottlenecks in the private property markets, build HDB flats, or expand our MRT network,” he was quoted as saying in the Straits Times.
While Singaporeans understand the need for foreign workers to take up manual jobs as such, they are adamantly against foreigners competing directly with them in PMET positios which can otherwise be filled by locals.
Mr Tharman seemed to be ignorant of the fact that foreigners are increasingly employed in semi-skilled jobs such as technicians, assistant engineers, managers, administrators, clinic assistants, accountants and customer service executives.
He also claimed that “the healthy growth of wages for low wage families from 2006 to 2008 corresponded with the period when the foreign workforce was growing most rapidly.”
“It was how we were able to offset the decline in wages for our lower-income group that had taken place in the first part of the decade,” he added.
However, Reform Party’s Secretary-General Kenneth Jeyaretnam who graduated with a double first class honors in economics from Cambridge University had already pointed out the error in the statistics used by Mr Tharman in a comprehensive review of the Budget:
“The majority of these new residents did not have dependents (hence the much faster rise in the resident labour force than the resident population) and all of them would have had jobs so the proportion of working adults in the average resident household would have risen. As a result we would have seen an increase in real median income per household member without any real increase in the median incomes of Singaporean citizens who were already here before this period began, i.e., the majority of us. Another reason why the Minister’s figure is misleading is that it excludes households consisting solely of non-working persons over 60.”
[Source: Reform Party: A complacent Budget]
A quick check on the website of the Singapore Department of Statistics reveals only a marginal increase in the incomes of low wage households between the years 2006 – 2008 which do not keep pace with the runaway inflation during the same period.
In fact, the median wages of Singapore households decrease by 3 percent last year.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, the relentless influx of foreigners into Singapore over the last few years had depressed the wages of ordinary Singaporeans, increased the cost of living, especially that of public housing, decreased labor productivity and led to an overall decline in the standard of living.
It is pretty obvious that Mr Tharman remains quite “dissociated from reality” and is unable to comprehend the hardships and sufferings faced by ordinary Singaporeans in their everyday lives.
His latest speech is more than sufficient proof that there will not be any reversals in the PAP’s liberal immigration and pro-foreigner policies and the latest policy changes are nothing more but a pre-election gimmick to placate angry Singaporeans and to secure their votes.
Singaporeans should send a strong message out to Mr Tharman and his colleagues that they are no longer willing to put up with their chicanery and that it is time to put a stop to the continued influx of foreigners which is fast eroding the national identity of Singaporeans and relegating them to being second class citizens in their own country of birth.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
March 4, 2010 by admin
Filed under Headlines
Leave a comment
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/0...workers-increase-income-of-low-wage-families/
Written by Our Correspondent
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam ended the three day Budget “debate” with a key message to Singaporeans: Singapore cannot do away without foreign workers.
He repeated the circular argument mentioned earlier by other PAP ministers like PM Lee Hsien Loong that foreign workers are needed in sectors shunned by Singaporeans:
“If we had not brought them in, we would not have been able to ease the supply bottlenecks in the private property markets, build HDB flats, or expand our MRT network,” he was quoted as saying in the Straits Times.
While Singaporeans understand the need for foreign workers to take up manual jobs as such, they are adamantly against foreigners competing directly with them in PMET positios which can otherwise be filled by locals.
Mr Tharman seemed to be ignorant of the fact that foreigners are increasingly employed in semi-skilled jobs such as technicians, assistant engineers, managers, administrators, clinic assistants, accountants and customer service executives.
He also claimed that “the healthy growth of wages for low wage families from 2006 to 2008 corresponded with the period when the foreign workforce was growing most rapidly.”
“It was how we were able to offset the decline in wages for our lower-income group that had taken place in the first part of the decade,” he added.
However, Reform Party’s Secretary-General Kenneth Jeyaretnam who graduated with a double first class honors in economics from Cambridge University had already pointed out the error in the statistics used by Mr Tharman in a comprehensive review of the Budget:
“The majority of these new residents did not have dependents (hence the much faster rise in the resident labour force than the resident population) and all of them would have had jobs so the proportion of working adults in the average resident household would have risen. As a result we would have seen an increase in real median income per household member without any real increase in the median incomes of Singaporean citizens who were already here before this period began, i.e., the majority of us. Another reason why the Minister’s figure is misleading is that it excludes households consisting solely of non-working persons over 60.”
[Source: Reform Party: A complacent Budget]
A quick check on the website of the Singapore Department of Statistics reveals only a marginal increase in the incomes of low wage households between the years 2006 – 2008 which do not keep pace with the runaway inflation during the same period.
In fact, the median wages of Singapore households decrease by 3 percent last year.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, the relentless influx of foreigners into Singapore over the last few years had depressed the wages of ordinary Singaporeans, increased the cost of living, especially that of public housing, decreased labor productivity and led to an overall decline in the standard of living.
It is pretty obvious that Mr Tharman remains quite “dissociated from reality” and is unable to comprehend the hardships and sufferings faced by ordinary Singaporeans in their everyday lives.
His latest speech is more than sufficient proof that there will not be any reversals in the PAP’s liberal immigration and pro-foreigner policies and the latest policy changes are nothing more but a pre-election gimmick to placate angry Singaporeans and to secure their votes.
Singaporeans should send a strong message out to Mr Tharman and his colleagues that they are no longer willing to put up with their chicanery and that it is time to put a stop to the continued influx of foreigners which is fast eroding the national identity of Singaporeans and relegating them to being second class citizens in their own country of birth.
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