PAP creates good jobs mostly for foreigners at Singaporeans’ expense

The PAP has never been able to create good jobs for Singaporeans. As the biggest landlord in Singapore, the PAP has been cheering higher land prices/rental for more than 2 decades.

The profitability of a Singapore company is impacted by rental and wages more than other costs. But since the PAP has vested interest in land/buildings, it has ‘no choice’ but to depress wages. With its dominance in parliament, laws are enacted to allow cheaper foreign labour to mitigate high rental. Our ‘labour’ union, NTUC, assists the PAP in convincing workers to compete for third world wages in our supposedly wealthy country.

The PAP government is solely responsible for wage stagnation/depression.

In its attempt to convince Singaporeans that we need foreign workers, PAP has been reminding citizens that we depend on them for ‘good’ jobs.

A month before the 2011 GE, PM Lee made a last ditch effort to convince Singaporeans that “Foreigners help create good jobs for S’poreans”. Point to note is the PAP never had any supporting facts or figures and it expects citizens to blindly accept its statements as the gospel truth. Three years later, this half-truth was repeated last month by PM Lee who seems to believe its propaganda still works in the internet age.

If good jobs have been created, why are citizens up in arms over PAP’s policies? Nothing better to do?

CPF data have confirmed the PAP did not create good jobs for Singaporeans. In 2002, the total number of jobs with sub-$2,000 wages was 586,873 (page 91). In 2011, the number of sub-$2,000 jobsincreased by about 50,000 to 636,128. link to an earlier post During the same period, the HDB resale price index almost doubled and prices of necessities have increased in tandem.

The basic cost of living in the most expensive city is about $3,000 per month, unless PAP expects citizens to abandon our aged parents, not to plan for retirement, etc. It appears we are really a pseudo-wealthy country redefined by Goh Chok Tong as one with a ‘Swiss’ standard of living?

Are good jobs created by simply relabeling bus drivers as ‘captains’ with wages unchanged? Hopefully the PAP does not intend to rename cleaners as hygiene executives and claim more good jobs have been created. Any salary increment by the PAP to improve the lot of low-wage earners is always conditional upon increasing productivity or clocking overtime. These are not conditions applied to the PAP.

Good jobs have to pay good salaries. A good salary is relative to our cost of living. Foreigners from third world countries can easily afford to retire comfortably after 2 decades of working in Singapore. With a salary as low as $2,000 (relative to our cost of living), cashing out their CPF alone allows them to purchase a landed property, a car (both without installments) and start a small business.

Look at the number of elderly Singaporeans above 70 working as cleaners – are these good jobs?

The PAP has been creating good jobs, yes, but mostly for foreigners.