K. Shanmugam Singapore Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law speaks on a TV show and a friend of mine forwarded the link to me.
I did, either the incredibly stupid or honest thing of responding to it directly on Minister Shanmugam's Facebook page. Following is what I posted:
As a foreigner living in Singapore, I found this discussion fascinating and insightful.
I think it is important to distinguish whether there are enough job opportunities or if the opportunities available are for the right jobs. Given the fact that Singapore's unemployment rate is significantly below what is considered to frictional unemployment (the level of unemployment due to natural transition of workers between jobs, 5% is generally thought of as being frictional at full employment; Singapore's unemployment rate is 1.8% - 60% lower). So, there is no shortage in absolute number of jobs in Singapore. The real shortage is in the lack of workers.
When an MNC moves a major office to Singapore from another country, it needs to be able to ramp up to full capacity as quickly as possible or the cost of moving will be too great and those MNCs won't move here at all. To make that transition time short, the companies bring senior people from their other offices or hire people with significant experience because they already know the industry, the clients, the culture of the company, the procedures,... And those staff will tend to be senior because that is whom you need to manage the transition and to train the local team. But over time, the MNCs should endeavor to fill as much of their staffing, both senior and lower, with local hires. First, it makes economic sense to do so, because a foreign employee often requires an expat package since they need to pay private market rates for housing and children's education, and no senior manager is going to move to Singapore while suffering a degradation in living standards. Second, doing so makes for good corporate citizenship to the host country, Singapore. In other words, it's the right thing to do.
The question then becomes: why aren't senior roles offered to locals when an MNC has already had a long tenure in Singapore? The fact is that there simply aren't as many Singaporeans with comparable qualifications as there are positions to be filled. At least not YET. The government must develop ways to work with MNCs to create management training programs for Singaporeans. These programs should be applied with both a carrot and stick method. For Singapore to be able to take care of its retirees, more and more of the senior positions need be filled by Singaporeans. But it's important to note that the fact that MNCs are placing senior managers here is a plus for Singapore. It allows Singaporeans to be exposed to and to aspire to these senior positions. It also puts in place the business infrastructure and management infrastructure to support those managers, thereby creating other tertiary jobs. And it provides an invaluable pool of potential mentors for Singaporeans to learn from as they take an increasing number of senior roles. Simply welcoming MNCs to your shores with a smile isn't enough, there must be a proactive approach to developing the local talent pool.
In creating the management training opportunities, the government needs to admit that the government itself competes for native managerial talent. Today, too many of the best and brightest Singaporeans become government employees where their youthful vigor and the steepest part of their professional learning curve is spent in becoming bureaucrats instead of dynamic, tactical and strategic problem solvers. I understand the argument that there needs to be a highly competent public sector to plan for Singapore's continued success, but as that success take root more and more, the most valuable resource of this nation - its people - should be unleashed on the private sector at a greater and greater rate. In fact, the government should encourage national scholars to buy-out of their bond, not discourage it. Afterall, those young professionals who buy-out of their bonds are paying back into the system so that other young Singaporeans can be afforded the opportunity for a world class education.
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