The recent advertisement for a local maid on Gumtree must have shocked many people here even though the ads could be a fake.
We also coincidentally just received a mail from someone who whistle blew that Eber Singapore - a US-based international group specialising in limo transport services - hired mostly foreigners for managerial positions whereas locals are hired as drivers only.
Such preferential hiring though understandable is hurting the employment opportunities of many local PMETs.
A foreign investor will want to put their own people in key positions but when they only hire our locals for non-essential appointments we may be heading for a tough time.
Though having Singaporeans working as maids may be too far-fetched, we may see more of our graduates taking on low-end jobs just to survive during the interim unemployment period.
We have already seen many ex-engineers working as cabbies now even though they are well-qualified and experienced as the demise of our manufacturing sector has hurt their employment opportunities severely.
Moreover, a friend of mine who is a business admin graduate and in her early thirties has to take on two part-time F & B jobs in order to make ends meet.
She helps out a noodle stall in a coffee shop in the day and served out beer in the evening at a local pub - things that she usually did as a student while studying overseas.
Never could she imagine that she would need to relive those days after graduation and she is not optimistic of her future.
Her last full time job was a receptionist working in a international bank under a foreign manager - it looks like the whole bank hires foreigners anyway.
She wondered why a business graduate like her has to work as a front-line receptionist whereas most of her foreign colleagues are chalking up precious experience working on banking matters. Something must be wrong here...
The hiring equation is made worse when we see many of the HR positions are taken up by foreigners who may be too keen to bring in their own people. Some will even hire a few Singaporeans for low-end positions like receptionists and clerks but reserve solid well-paying ones for their own kind.
As Singapore takes in more foreigners to beef up our population growth and the competition for jobs become more intense in the process, one wonders if this alone will cause the government to lose more votes in the next election.
Singaporeans are a pragmatic lot and they will turn against the hand that used to feed them if their material needs are not currently being met.
As for the maligned FCF, many people are already discounting it as a gimmick used by the government to appease a growing hostile population.
Unless the HR department is staffed with Singaporeans and our government starts to place Singaporeans' interest first above the economy, the country will struggle and we may see more of our young graduates taking on more menial work in order to survive.
Hopefully we won't see someone working as a maid for $600 a month for a foreigner...that will be the ultimate blow for the country.
Gilbert Goh