Honestly I am quite fedup with the ruckus over the Internet with regards to the issue of Foreign Talents. We Singapore is a migrant society, how many of us are True Blue Singaporeans? Sorry I am a mix, my parents are all NOT (to lift from Article Two of the United States Constitution) “natural born” Singaporeans. But I consider myself a Singaporean and I am proud to be a Singaporean. I hate those web sites that had all the derogatory terms silly..pore etc etc. I mean have some respect for your country.

Am I affected by Foreign Talents? Why not? My PhD place in local universities are nearly all at the hands of foreigners. I can’t even find a good place myself. This is the personal perspective. Consider the nation perspective. We have 4 million Singaporeans. How many engineers, scientists, bankers etc can we produce? Extremely finite. China and India can produce millions of them.

To be frank, we can never attract the cream who will rather go USA. But we do not need the absolute top 1%. Give us the Top 5% is enough. We need them to help our economy achieve greater heights. In the process of helping our economy, they will contribute to the creation of more working positions that can be suitable for Singaporeans. I really really fear that the hostility stirred by those on the Internet will spill out to the general public and make the Foreign Talents feel that they are not welcome. It is not a zero sum game. Foreign Talents took some jobs but create more jobs for Singaporeans.

We are competing against the world. Do you want these Talents to go to our competitor countries to compete against us? Or do you want them to be with us to compete against the rest of the world? Is this logic that difficult to understand?

Of course what I am talking about are “Talents”. For unskilled workers, what we can do is to upgrade such working positions. To upgrade need training. We need to be receptive of training, retraining and retraining again again and again. In the Change Paradigm that we are in, we cannot afford to be conceit. More skills means higher pay, no skills means no job. It is a cruel fact of life.

Can we increase the foreign worker levy? Sure! Want to increase to $1 million per worker? You can be sure that employers will only hire Singaporeans even without skills. But what will we have? Less productivity, less able to compete in the world of nations and sooner or later we will be left behind. Of course employers must do their part in helping retrain the workers. Employers need to know that the training will eventually help the bottom line of the company by making their staff more productive. I have seen lots of skills training subsidies up to 90% of the course fees!

I do have my grouses too. Not just the PhD places, but taxis! Took a taxi a few times that had China drivers. I mean the accent obvious. Tell them to go Bedok or Tampines, they do not even know. You can even tell them in Chinese. They told me to guide them road by road. I end up having to take another cab. Such “talents” we can safely leave to our competitors. Can even sponsor their air tickets.

Generally speaking Foreign Talents tend to be more hardworking. From a psychological point of view, they are in an unknown country and they need to prove themselves and to establish themselves. Similar to the situation of the pioneers of Singapore who worked hard to create the Singapore that we know of today. It is good to pass on such spirit to us Singaporeans who are used to a comfy life.

Each country’s Foreign Talent have their skills.

1. India – Obvious Software and IT
2. China – Engineers, Scientists and nowadays lots of cash to invest
3. Philippines – Their natural born hospitality makes them perfect candidates for the Service Sector.

We can learn from all of them! Do we need to look at the glass as if it is forever half empty? Yeap, there are sure to be bad hats. But how many compared to the ones who are really contributing to the Singapore society? But I guess others will say my views are Pro Government. Sorry I am not Pro Government, I am Pro Singapore. I can’t care less for politics.