Reality vs Stats (CECA) As experienced by a real citizen

 

Dear Minister Tan See Leng,

This is an open letter as a handful of citizens may be interested in the matter of "employment disconnect" as seen from the eyes of a real citizen.

From your ministerial statement made on 6th July 2021, you declared:

"Today we still have about 22,000 PME jobs that are not filled. Companies are desperate to fill these jobs, and would love to take in Singaporeans if they could, because they would be more productive. So why are these jobs not filled till now?"
and

"The citizen unemployment rate over the past decade has been consistently low at around 3%".

Minister sir, then it is time for all of us to celebrate and smell the roses.......... if the above statements are true. That SG is actually experiencing full employment status as defined by textbook economists.

However, if the Minister would take the effort to leave his Ivory tower and spend some money to support our Grab and private hirer drivers and chat with them about why they are driving instead of being driven, then the Minister would tear up his stacks of data and bin them.

You will find your trip well spent and highly educational. Most of us speak good English. Able to talk about social, political, and diversified matters that come with our world-class education system. If you close your eyes, you could have sworn that you are actually speaking with a PMET. Imagine that. Like the CECA Indians, we the PMET drivers are everywhere!

The next question as a competent Minister of Manpower would ask " why are you driving risking your life for 8 to 12 hours a day without rest when there are 22,000 PMET jobs sitting in my office?"

Why indeed. As a humble PMET driver, I can only postulate that it is because there is
a Blockage that is stopping these jobs from being filled by SG. This also applies to the thousands of delivery drivers, food Pandas, security officers, supervisors and those who simply give up and slip through the cracks and out of the system. Your 3% unemployment rate would look rather untenable if you factor in the thousands that are not working in the appropriate jobs as commensurate with their experiences and educational level. A term that MOM should start adopting in your statistics - Underemployment.

By now, your senses must be chiming with a small alarm bell that not all is rosy at the grassroots level. Either the vacancies data you are provided with are false, thus permitting the hordes of PRs and new citizens continued and unrestricted entry into SG or a blockage that is undermining our ability to access these 22,000 PMET jobs. Or both.

I, like many others, have applied repeatedly for jobs that are in line with our expertise and experiences. Yet, over the 8 years of applications, I received less than 10 calls and 2 interviews. I assure you that I am not alone in this matter. I assure you that it has nothing to do with lack of skills upgrading too. This is some diversionary tactic to detract us from the grim fact that our jobs are simply taken over regardless of skills, salaries, and experiences. For many of us, this exercise is actually skills "downgrading".

As a responsible Minister, I urge you to be more proactive in this matter by:
1. Check and confirm that there are actually 22,000 PMET jobs available. Not just a number that has not been refreshed and gathering dust.

2. Deploy some manpower and speak with Real people on the ground driving, delivering, guarding, cleaning, and other jobs.......why they are doing what they are doing. Is
this to keep fit, hobby, list of things to do before dying or lack of proper jobs?

3. Include in your database, the status of "Underemployed" citizens for this group is not insignificant. This will provide a more realistic reflection on our state of employment.

4. Set up a "Sting" operation to flush out why these vacancies are blocked or even "gamed" and still not filled despite your so-called best efforts.

How?

Use actual CVs of unemployed PMETs to test the usual routes to potential employers and monitor what happens with the applications. Keep in close communication with the applicants.

If nothing happens after 1 month (no calls at all), then pay a friendly visit to the employer and enquire about the status of these unfilled jobs without giving their HR knowledge that the MOM has been monitoring the application.

I am sure that along with the thousands of unemployed PMETs, we will be very interested in learning why these jobs remain unfilled and what gems the MOM may uncover on the proviso that you are willing to reveal them.

We, the people of our beloved red dot, are mostly not smelling roses but the pong of Titan Arum aka "smelliest flower in the world". I urge you along with our esteemed Ministers to cast off your suits and really start looking with fresh eyes instead of burying yourselves in statistics for you are losing touch with your own people - I mean Singaporeans who have served the Army, reservists and wives and mothers that borne them.

Your humble GRAB driver,
Philip Wen

July 25, 2021