- Joined
- Nov 25, 2011
- Messages
- 28,077
- Points
- 113
Happy New Year, but who’ll clean up?
By yini | SingaporeScene – 16 hours ago
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/happy-ll-clean-081719810.html
By Seah Chiang Nee
If you're going for an eat out in Singapore, be prepared for a little inconvenience, like slower service and seeing stacks of used plates where once these were efficiently cleared by China cleaners.
I am referring to hawker centres, not five-star hotels.
Lunar New Year is that time of the year when the service industry — some say the country itself — is being tested by an outflow of guest workers for family reunions.
The departure also involves celebrating Malaysians, Vietnamese and Koreans, but it is the Chinese — an awesome one-million strong — who are the most significant by their absence.
In varying degrees, their departure has left a hole in the city's cleaning and food industries.
Some major airlines have doubled the number of Singapore-China flights.
Singapore businesses are struggling with the shortage that often sees uncollected dirty bowls and plates piling up on tables.
The smaller businesses are worst affected.
At some places, litter is not swept for long periods.
At one food court, family members are roped in for emergency duty — serving, cleaning or delivering.
At the Kovan Hawker Centre, just newly-refurbished, the dilemma is worst during peak hours, when families and workers look for clean spots. Most times, the dilemma eventually ends and the trays are eventually cleared.
When I returned a few days later, I saw non-uniformed relief cleaners rolling up their sleeves, and a few were apparently Singaporean!
I was told they were paid 30% to 40% more than their Chinese peers. So, who says Singaporeans shun these jobs?
More likely, they dislike the low wages that mainlanders are given (the opposition has fought for a minimum wage without success).
The trouble is that many of the Chinese will be away for about a week, possibly longer. Singaporeans get only two days to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Not-so bustling Chinatown
The worst hit is Chinatown which is popular with diners.
According to state television, it is in Chinatown that the worker shortage is the most apparent since most businessmen employ Chinese workers.
Tens of thousands of cleaners, sweepers, waitresses, karaoke girls and salespersons make it a flourishing place.
If you throw a stone there, it will likely hit a non-Singaporean, more likely a mainlander.
After all, they make up one-fifth of the population of five million.
Most work in services, from low-skilled labourers to hospitality workers in five star-hotels, from gleaming shopping malls or supermarkets to construction.
The Chinese men began driving buses in Singapore from 2008.
The hardy women are virtually everywhere, ranging from pushing garang guni carts to working at karaoke joints.
The biggest number is in the food and cleaning businesses, where the peak manpower needs lie at this time of the year.
"Even my favourite masseuse has gone home," complained a young man. "The usually crowded entertainment spots are now quiet, like a graveyard!" he added.
All the inconvenience has surprisingly evoked less of a ruckus from the usually complaining public.
This time, the public seems to be taking it in stride, except in the few message boards where the issue is hotly discussed.
But not the foodstall bosses, who are not too happy, because this is among the most profitable times of the year.
The shortage has forced them to get relief non-China workers, and replacing utensils with disposables.
Asked why the traditionally complaining social media Singaporeans are keeping silent, a hawker inspector replied: "I think they don't want to provide ammunition to the pro-immigration government to bring in more foreign workers."
If it serves as a mini-test of Singapore's survival capabilities without depending on foreign workers, the result has been mixed.
Some people cope with the crisis well. Others complain of increased costs of hiring relief workers at premium wages.
"This is forcing us to raise prices more than usual," one shopkeeper told me, adding "but no problem, the Singaporean buyers pay, happy.
"Anyway, there's shortage also in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan."
What if workers leave
A friend who is a polytechnic lecturer commented: "If a small temporary shortage can cause this scale of mess, imagine if foreigners were to leave suddenly one day!"
All this made me recall the Singapore of the 1970s and 80s.
It was drummed into this reporter's ears that Singapore must never follow Western Europe's example of being hooked on imported cheap labour from Africa and Asia.
It was a different strategy then. "You import too much cheap labour you become addicted to it and can't live without it".
The result, I remember being told on one occasion, would almost certainly be social chaos.
"If we import too many low-skilled foreigners, we would also import their problems". At any rate, the world today has moved into what we once swore to avoid.
After reading about China's strong growth and predictions of its longer-term future, I am convinced that the flow of "cheap unskilled" workers from China will dry up in another generation.
This means that the shortage we are experiencing during this Chinese New Year will be many times more serious in possibly 20 years.
Hard to believe, but China is itself running low on semi-skilled or even lower-skilled workers, a trend that looks likely to worsen.
That could mean that China's lower skilled workers may become too expensive for Singapore to feasibly employ.
Then perhaps the reverse may happen during future Chinese New Year festivals.
A stream of guest workers from Singapore leaves their China workplace to be with their families.
A former Reuters correspondent and newspaper editor, the writer is now a freelance columnist writing on general trends in Singapore. This post first appeared on his blog www.littlespeck.com on 21 January 2012.
By yini | SingaporeScene – 16 hours ago
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/happy-ll-clean-081719810.html
By Seah Chiang Nee
If you're going for an eat out in Singapore, be prepared for a little inconvenience, like slower service and seeing stacks of used plates where once these were efficiently cleared by China cleaners.
I am referring to hawker centres, not five-star hotels.
Lunar New Year is that time of the year when the service industry — some say the country itself — is being tested by an outflow of guest workers for family reunions.
The departure also involves celebrating Malaysians, Vietnamese and Koreans, but it is the Chinese — an awesome one-million strong — who are the most significant by their absence.
In varying degrees, their departure has left a hole in the city's cleaning and food industries.
Some major airlines have doubled the number of Singapore-China flights.
Singapore businesses are struggling with the shortage that often sees uncollected dirty bowls and plates piling up on tables.
The smaller businesses are worst affected.
At some places, litter is not swept for long periods.
At one food court, family members are roped in for emergency duty — serving, cleaning or delivering.
At the Kovan Hawker Centre, just newly-refurbished, the dilemma is worst during peak hours, when families and workers look for clean spots. Most times, the dilemma eventually ends and the trays are eventually cleared.
When I returned a few days later, I saw non-uniformed relief cleaners rolling up their sleeves, and a few were apparently Singaporean!
I was told they were paid 30% to 40% more than their Chinese peers. So, who says Singaporeans shun these jobs?
More likely, they dislike the low wages that mainlanders are given (the opposition has fought for a minimum wage without success).
The trouble is that many of the Chinese will be away for about a week, possibly longer. Singaporeans get only two days to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Not-so bustling Chinatown
The worst hit is Chinatown which is popular with diners.
According to state television, it is in Chinatown that the worker shortage is the most apparent since most businessmen employ Chinese workers.
Tens of thousands of cleaners, sweepers, waitresses, karaoke girls and salespersons make it a flourishing place.
If you throw a stone there, it will likely hit a non-Singaporean, more likely a mainlander.
After all, they make up one-fifth of the population of five million.
Most work in services, from low-skilled labourers to hospitality workers in five star-hotels, from gleaming shopping malls or supermarkets to construction.
The Chinese men began driving buses in Singapore from 2008.
The hardy women are virtually everywhere, ranging from pushing garang guni carts to working at karaoke joints.
The biggest number is in the food and cleaning businesses, where the peak manpower needs lie at this time of the year.
"Even my favourite masseuse has gone home," complained a young man. "The usually crowded entertainment spots are now quiet, like a graveyard!" he added.
All the inconvenience has surprisingly evoked less of a ruckus from the usually complaining public.
This time, the public seems to be taking it in stride, except in the few message boards where the issue is hotly discussed.
But not the foodstall bosses, who are not too happy, because this is among the most profitable times of the year.
The shortage has forced them to get relief non-China workers, and replacing utensils with disposables.
Asked why the traditionally complaining social media Singaporeans are keeping silent, a hawker inspector replied: "I think they don't want to provide ammunition to the pro-immigration government to bring in more foreign workers."
If it serves as a mini-test of Singapore's survival capabilities without depending on foreign workers, the result has been mixed.
Some people cope with the crisis well. Others complain of increased costs of hiring relief workers at premium wages.
"This is forcing us to raise prices more than usual," one shopkeeper told me, adding "but no problem, the Singaporean buyers pay, happy.
"Anyway, there's shortage also in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan."
What if workers leave
A friend who is a polytechnic lecturer commented: "If a small temporary shortage can cause this scale of mess, imagine if foreigners were to leave suddenly one day!"
All this made me recall the Singapore of the 1970s and 80s.
It was drummed into this reporter's ears that Singapore must never follow Western Europe's example of being hooked on imported cheap labour from Africa and Asia.
It was a different strategy then. "You import too much cheap labour you become addicted to it and can't live without it".
The result, I remember being told on one occasion, would almost certainly be social chaos.
"If we import too many low-skilled foreigners, we would also import their problems". At any rate, the world today has moved into what we once swore to avoid.
After reading about China's strong growth and predictions of its longer-term future, I am convinced that the flow of "cheap unskilled" workers from China will dry up in another generation.
This means that the shortage we are experiencing during this Chinese New Year will be many times more serious in possibly 20 years.
Hard to believe, but China is itself running low on semi-skilled or even lower-skilled workers, a trend that looks likely to worsen.
That could mean that China's lower skilled workers may become too expensive for Singapore to feasibly employ.
Then perhaps the reverse may happen during future Chinese New Year festivals.
A stream of guest workers from Singapore leaves their China workplace to be with their families.
A former Reuters correspondent and newspaper editor, the writer is now a freelance columnist writing on general trends in Singapore. This post first appeared on his blog www.littlespeck.com on 21 January 2012.
Last edited:
