Tag: retrenchment

Daily Discourse – Priority to the Local Worker

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This must have been the most pleasing thing that Lim Swee Say Shee Shee has said [see below], even though I have said this back in Oct 24. The only difference is that I am a nobody and I ain’t paid a million. Maybe they ought to fire him and put me on his job for half the pay.

Labour chief urges employers to give priority to local workers
Channel NewsAsia – Friday, December 5

SINGAPORE: It may make more business sense to let go of foreign rank—and—file workers rather than Singaporean workers if retrenchment is unavoidable, said Labour chief Lim Swee Say at the Singapore Tripartism Forum on Thursday.

The secretary—general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) said: “We’re talking about rank—and—file workers who are, by and large, replaceable. Our message is — Give priority to the local workers. Not only will you help us minimise unemployment in Singapore, but more importantly, it makes business sense for your company.”

Mr Lim said if Singaporeans are laid off, companies may find it tough to re—employ them when the economy improves because they will be sought after by companies which must fulfil a quota of local talent first, before they can hire foreign ones.

At the same time, foreign workers are necessary for companies to keep costs down and to avoid a scenario whereby local firms choose to relocate overseas.

Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong related a conversation he had with a company head.

“If he were asked to employ only Singaporeans, his costs would have gone up and he would have had no choice but to shift the whole company out of Singapore to China,” said Mr Gan.

A recent survey of employers showed that about 60 per cent of them were freezing headcount and a few planned to retrench workers.

Stephen Lee, president of the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), said: “Many companies choose to do the easier one first — freeze hiring. And for those who have left by natural attrition, they don’t replace. The next step is non—renewal of contracts and that will mostly affect foreign workers.”

The labour movement stressed that retrenchment should be the last resort. And despite the current economic gloom, employers and employees should help one another and plan tactics carefully so that Singapore can rebound quickly, once the economic downturn is over.

— CNA/so

Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, one can figure out with a rat’s ass the effect of this is going to be negligible!

First of all, foreign companies may use this excuse to just leave Singapore for good, be it to set up at a new place (no matter how unlikely). Alternatively, they just wind down their operations here in Singapore to so-call ‘concentrate on its core competencies’. And this appears to be the fate the buyer has installed for my current employer once the acquisition is complete …

Secondly, PRs don’t count towards to quota which companies need to maintain to keep a foreign worker. So technically, a company can still retrench a Singaporeans and keep the job for a PR, who in essence is nothing more than just a foreigner.

So, Lim Shee Shee can say whatever he wants and it is unlikely that it’s going to have a great effect in helping some of us keep our jobs anyway. And it’s not like the Tali-PAP ever really give a shit whether we have a job anyway. After all, they’ll just blame us for not being qualified enough to get employed.

In simpler words, when there’s a problem it’s always our own fault!

Comics:

Recommended Reads:
Cobalt Paladin: Diary of an Entrepreneur – Signs of Our Times #3

Trivial:
On June 22, 1941, Soviet archaeologists working in the Samarkand crypt opened the sarcophagus to study the body of Timur (Tamerlane) and found the inscription: “Whoever opens this will be defeated by an enemy more fearsome than I.” Hours later, Hitler invaded Russia. Five weeks after the great Emir was re-interred in 1942, the Germans surrendered at Stalingrad.

Daily Discourse – Pay Cut

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Well, I got this on the news on the evening of 24th Nov.

Up to 19% pay cut for top civil servants; lower year-end bonus
Channel NewsAsia – Tuesday, November 25

SINGAPORE: Ministers and top civil servants will get a pay cut of up to 19 percent next year. The Civil Service is also reducing the year-end bonus payment for this year.

Top civil servants and ministers were supposed to get a pay rise in January next year to bring their salaries in line with private sector pay.

It was to be the third adjustment to bring public sector pay to 88 percent of the private sector benchmark, a move announced in April 2007.

The benchmark is set at two-thirds of the median pay of the top eight earners in each of the six sectors: multinational corporations, lawyers, bankers, accountants, local manufacturers and engineers.

In April 2007 and January this year, the salaries of top civil servants and ministers were revised to keep pace with soaring private sector salaries. But the Public Service Division said the 2009 salary revision for this group has now been deferred, in view of the clouded economic outlook.

In fact, the annual salary for top civil servants and ministers will fall next year to levels below April 2007, because close to 25 percent of their annual salary comprises variable payments linked to the GDP growth of Singapore and their salary will fall as long as the economy remains weak.

In 2009, the Prime Minister and President will see their annual salaries cut by 19 percent. Ministers and Senior Permanent Secretaries will see an 18 percent fall. The allowance for Members of Parliament will be cut by 16 percent.

Commenting on the pay cut, Mr Teo Chee Hean, Minister in charge of the Civil Service, said: “Public sector salaries follow the market up and down. The mechanism we introduced last year to link a significant proportion of the salary of senior civil servants to the performance of the economy is working as intended. This mechanism allows salaries to respond more rapidly to market conditions.”

The Public Service Division also said the Prime Minister has and will continue to donate all increases in his own salary after the April 2007 revisions, to good causes for five years.

Next year, the Prime Minister will actually see his salary fall to pre-revision levels.

As for civil servants such as teachers and police officers, they are getting a total of two months’ bonus payment this year, plus S$100 to S$300 paid out in July. This comprises the 13th month payment or Annual Wage Supplement and a one-month Annual Variable Component or AVC. The year-end AVC has been reduced to 0.5 month.

Last year, the total bonus payment was three months plus S$220, including a half-month Growth Bonus which was paid for the exceptional economic performance in 2007.

Public Service Division news release on civil servants’ annual pay

When my friend SanNiang told me of this news, he made a comment along the line of: some times, you got to be careful what you wished for.

How true! I supposed many people would have wished that the mini$ter$ cut their pay. But I doubt anyone of us wished for a recession and one of the worst economic crisis in our life time. And so we got what we wished for, but at what cost? And personally, I am not really interested in the degree of the cut, nor am I interested in debating if it is too much or too little. After all, they are probably still the most highly paid politicians in the world…

But on a broader basis, I think a lot of us – other than the most selfish Darwinist bastard – would rather our employers cut our pay than cut our jobs. Simply put, if there are 4 people in the company, and 1 headcount needs to be axed, I would rather the employer reduce 25% of my pay and keep all 4 headcounts. That way, at least the four of us would still have a salary to pay our bills and not need to feed on our own savings. Neither do we become an unemployment figure and a problem for the nation.

Retrenchment itself creates a social problem. Just the threat of retrenchment – and in effect unemployment – lowers consumer confidence and causes a reduction in spending. As for the people who are retrenched, they would now have to rely on their savings and there’s almost negligible spending whatsoever. Even if one gets a ‘golden handshake’ to go along with the retrenchment, they would be hoarding that money for no one knows for sure just how long before they become employed again. All of these goes on to make the existing ‘economic malaise’ worse. And when everyone stops spending, a recession becomes nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That being said, I doubt anyone would feel any remorse if the Darwinist bastards themselves are the ones that got axed. They can live by the principles they believed in, and die by them for all I cared. I considered that poetic – if not divine – justice.

Finally, I had an exchange of emails over Facebook with a friend last night. Apparently he is now working longer hours as the company has retrenched a guy and they have to cover his duties as well. They managed to identify a foreign fallen talent who isn’t suitable for his current post, and actually managed to prove his incompetence. Now, for our own survival I would suggest we identify and expose some of these ‘economic refugees’ as well.

They should be their own country’s unemployment problem. Not ours.

Comics:

Recommendations:

Good reads:
The World of Fat4: Reaction of Singapore to DBS and NKF
Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Ho Ching takes a pay cut!!!
Information Read By Me: Video interview with Singaporeans from three different constituencies on their views of Town Councils’ loss of sinking funds