Young graduates filling up service crew jobs, diploma holders standing in as security guards and masters degree holders taking up taxi driving - all in the name of survival and because they couldn't find viable ready employment in our high-GDP low unemployment economy.
Welcome to our new economy whereby higher education and work experience do not count anymore - its who you know now or rather what kind of passport you carry that matters so long it is not anything associated with the pink I/C.
Many of our aging experienced PMETs also provide tuition services to our stressed-out young students ekking out a survival substenance but its hardly reassuring as students come and go and many have to eat grass during school holiday period.
We received an email from a young female graduate recently seeking advice on a case of unfair employment terms as she is harassed at work by her male colleagues and wanted to quit but couldn't or else she has to compensate the company the remaining uncompleted months of her 7-month contract. She only served two months of the contract and the compensation to be paid amounted to $8500 ($1700 ×5).
What shocked me is not the unfair contractual terms as it has been happening on a regular basis but the fact that she has to resort to working in a cafe for $1700 a month serving customers after paying tens of thousands of dollars for a degree.
Will we now see more and more young graduates ditching their dreams after graduation and after staying jobless for many months decide to take up anything open in the job market in order to survive?
The F & B industry has been long dominated by foreigners as its work conditions are not only harsh due to the long laborious hours but low pay too as most workers don't take home more than $1500 a month after all the necessary deductions. Its also daunting for our locals who are willing to try their hand at serving coffee to find out that he is surrounded by foreigner colleagues who only speak in their own language to one another.
Many of our local service crew don't last long due to this segregation and we all know of the infamous Le Fondue restaurant who boasted of a all-Filipino crew which hires only Filipinos for their staff.
However, more fresh graduates may now want to try their hand at the service industry due to its hip chic culture and some people also like the service nature of the job especially if you are those who like to socialize and mix around.
Right now, it can be safely say that less than 10% of the F & B service staff consists of Singaporeans and if the government wants to depend less on foreign imports, it must try all ways to make the service job more attractive to our local people. Increasing pay is one thing but employers must also try to improve the horrendous work environment make worse by the fact that service crew are seldom respected by our own people here.
Split shift is a norm here and workers sometimes rest in between shift or return home for a break before going back to the restaurant for the evening part of the job. Something can be done here to minimise the wasted hours in between the shift so that productivity can improve.
We also frequently see too many service staff serving too few customers and its a sheer waste of resources. In many cafes abroad, the service crew often doubled up as cashier and even clean up near closing time. Their pay often doubled ours and its a respectable decent job to begin with.
In Singapore, Filipinos have dominated this service sector all along due to their hospitable nature but personally I think their friendly good-natured service has dropped off lately.
Over in Australia, I saw many young undergraduates working part-time at cafes and restaurants as the law allows them to work 22 hours a week - even foreign students are permitted to work. In fact, every uni student I know is doing it to earn some pocket money to supplement the high cost of living there. The minimum wage of $16 helps alot though students normally earn lesser at around $12 an hour.
As our service industry matures and strengthens due to the expanding population, it makes sense to capitalize on this industry and ensure that at least 25% of the service staff is manned by locals. Our locals will take better to the F & B sector than say construction or driving a big bus.
We are very tight on labour nowadays and the recent Little India riot has taught us precious lessons on overcrowding and social disintegration when we over-depend on foreign labour.
Its time to think out of the box and I thought that the F & B industry is one of the easiest sector to integrate and bring in our local labour.
Gilbert Goh