Of Foreigners in Singapore

Just the other day. I came across a report in the newspaper on how a son of an immigrant from China was able to make good in our education system and rise to win the much coveted President Scholarship.

The boy's award of the scholarship raised the controversial question of whether Singapore should allow foreigners the ability to benefit from our system by winning scholarships while depriving other locally born Singaporeans of the opportunity. Indeed, this question raises the larger issue of how we should deal with the issue of foreigners coming to Singapore to exploit opportunities here for themselves.

Over the years. we have had to deal with the question of migrating population, as we have an increasing number of foreigners making a bee-lire for Singapore and calling it home. With the opening up of China and India there is a greater movement of migrants here in search of a better life and job opportunities. That globalization has moved in a significant way to force economies to open up to remain competitive has provided the push for the free flow and mobility of labor.

In recent years, we have seen an influx of foreign immigrants at all levels; from the blue collar construction workers to those who join us as managers and professionals. Indeed the character and complexion of our society has changed somewhat. If you went to a hospital today, you will see nurses from the Philippines and China. You may even find a Myanmese doctor attending to you; or if you went to a financial institution, you would probably more likely to come across an IT professional from India working in the backroom providing IT support.

The presence of these immigrants has brought about increased competition in the market place for employment and other opportunities. Besides, these immigrants who come here with their families also give our children a run for their money in the highly competitive education environment. I have even heard loud grumbling from parents about how these foreign immigrant children are doing so well in schools that they overshadowed their children academically. It is of no comfort to the Singaporean to be told that he lost his job to a foreign worker because that person is younger, better qualified and above all is prepared to take on his job for a much lower pay.

Against these realities are the common sentiments of Singaporeans about how they have been deprived of their employment birthrights by these foreigners who have come and stolen their jobs and livelihood from them. The often heard argument among male Singaporeans is how his sacrifice for Singapore through his National Service is wasted because the government does not provide enough protection against competition from a foreign worker.

Should we be stopping these foreign migrants from coming to Singapore? Do they really serve a useful purpose in helping our economy to perform? Can we do without them? If we can’t, how should we deal with them? Let’s take an honest examination of these issues.

Singapore’s cosmopolitan nature tells us that we are an open society that characterizes itself as a meeting point of various cultures and religions. This means we ought to be a society that welcomes outsiders with open arms, including those who want to make Singapore home. But, are we?

Perhaps, many Singaporeans are not; perhaps we do not have a choice. Increasingly, Singapore is faced with an ageing population with many who are spread across the continents as part of the Singapore Diaspora. At last count, the number was 140,000. Our total fertility rate is below the replacement number of two per couple. These statistics for a country that prides itself in its people as its resource are certainly not very encouraging. Singapore depends on its people as its long term resource to sustain its economy. Without a vibrant, young and well educated work force, Singapore would face great difficulty in trying to compete on the world stage. One way to get what we need, which we cannot get by giving birth, is to encourage foreigners to make Singapore home. However, we cannot begin to begin encourage foreigners to make Singapore home, if there is deep resentment within our society, of the foreigners who are here with us.

Foreigners do contribute to our economy. They provide the skills and the talents that will help our economy to stay vibrant. They also provide the enterprising initiatives to start up businesses that would provide employment to Singaporeans. I can think of eSys, a computer assembly company that is providing employment to thousands of Singaporeans. So if Vikas Goel hadn’t been allowed into Singapore to work initially, there may not have been eSys and many more Singaporeans would have been poorer for it.

I came across some statistics recently which I thought was interesting. In recent years, we created more jobs than we were able to create Singaporeans by natural birth. In 2005, 63,500 new jobs mere created for locals. This was up from 49,900 in 2004. In fact the figure for 2005 was highest in recent years. The number of unemployed locals in fact fell from 5% in March 04 to 3.4 % in March 06. In other words, for every 10 jobs that were created, nine went to locals and one went to foreigners.

It is obvious therefore that foreign workers do complement the local workforce in more ways than one. They help to develop industries where their skills are needed and they contribute to the pool of highly skilled workers in Singapore. They are the first to be asked to leave the employers service in bad times; and they undertake work that locals are reluctant to undertake. Between 1992 to 2002, a 1% increase in Work Permit holders supported 2.6% increase in jobs for skilled locals and 1.4% increase in jobs for unskilled locals.

It is quite clear that Singapore needs migrants. After all our MM Lee Kuan Yew did mention not too long ago that if we had not kept out migrants earlier, we would not have been here today as a nation. We accept that although the first generation of these migrants may not be Singaporean, the next generation would.