"I also have the idea that well let’s say an engineer working in management/director level is earning 10K SGD a month, assuming someone in UK has the same ability, same job. Would that person really be earning 10K GBP? I get the feeling its somehow lesser, probably £7-8K? That would affect the PPP. Well granted, if you are high up you won’t be so poor that you have to count dollar by dollar when buying food. The only part that I might be brainwashed is the £7-8K concept, but if that’s so and the food prices/lodging expenses etc are significantly higher than Singapore. This is a fairly prevalent stereotype among my peers. I think it’s worth noting unless you have more ‘insider info’ on that which I’m very happy to hear about."
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| What determines your earning potential? |
Firstly, I have to dispel this myth - I understand that my reader is a student and this is but hearsay since she is too young to start working, but let's deal with some of the fundamental basics of how much pay you command in the working world. Let's say you do have an engineering working in management/director level in Singapore, would he be able to command the same salary if he moves to another country like Australia or the UK? It is not that simple, a lot of it depend on the current situation in the job market. There are also other factors as well and I will go through them.
1. Supply & demand
In Australia, there is a booming mining industry - this is a country very rich in mineral resources and digging those precious minerals out of the ground and selling them off is big business. So if you are a mining engineer, then there is plenty of well paid jobs for you to choose from in Australia. However, what kind of work can a mining engineer find in Singapore? Certainly there are no mines in Singapore - a long time ago, there were a few granite quarries in Bukit Timah, Bukit Gombak (Little Guilin) and Pulau Ubin, but these have closed and currently there are no mining activities in Singapore and as a result, a mining engineer looking for work in Singapore would be applying for jobs where his mining expertise and experience would be irrelevant. I'm not saying that a mining engineer cannot find a job in Singapore, but any kind of work he finds would not be as well paid as in Australia because he is unable to work in the mining industry in Singapore. In this case, working in Singapore would mean probably switching to another area of engineering or leaving engineering altogether - something that would definitely affect your earning potential.
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| Can a mining engineer find work in Singapore? It's not going to be easy. |
So it is necessary to look whether or not your skills are in demand when comparing your earning potential in two different markets. Allow me to use another case study that many of my Singaporean readers will be familiar with: I am sure many of you have had Chinese tuition at some point (or at least tuition for any of your other subjects as a student). Since my father was a Chinese teacher, I was subject to free Chinese tuition practically every single day as a student and somehow, my Chinese still sucks and it is my third language behind English and French (sorry, I digress). In Singapore today, given the huge influx of PRC migrants from China, the benchmark for Chinese tuition standards has gone up a lot. Many Singaporean assume that a native speaker of Chinese from China would be a far better Chinese teacher - certainly someone like my father who has a very strong Malaysian accent has pretty poor pronunciation in Mandarin compared to a native from Beijing.
This means that the supply of Chinese tuition teachers has increased over the years and the standard of these teachers along with the expectations of their standards have both gone up. In the meantime, the demand for Chinese tuition teachers have not really increased - yes the population has increased, however, this influx is mostly from China and the PRC students need help with English rather than their Chinese. And as for the migrants from other countries like the Philippines and India, they're not bothering to learn Chinese - they just need to polish up their English. So what we have is a situation where you are flooding the market with a high number of highly qualified teachers when the demand for such teachers have not increased - this drives down the price for private Chinese tuition in Singapore simply as a function of supply growing faster than demand. Have a look at the prices here: the average rate seems to be around S$30 (£15) an hour. Admittedly, that is not a lot, giving tuition in Singapore isn't going to make you rich.
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| Can you read it all? Do you need a Chinese tuition teacher? |
What about the situation in the UK then? There is an increasing demand for Chinese lessons as more and more British people are waking up to the idea that a mastery of the Chinese language could serve them well in their future job prospects. However, it is a notoriously difficult language to learn as a foreign language - hence many people do give up or don't even try and even for those who persist with it for many years, they struggle to past the basics. Hence an effective bilingual Chinese teacher can actually charge quite a lot if he is able to deliver results - given the scarcity of such good Chinese teachers in the UK, one can make a pretty good living. Sure there are plenty of Chinese foreign students who try to cash in on the situation by offering private tuition, but being able to speak Mandarin doesn't mean you necessarily know how to teach it to another person. Hence those Chinese teachers with a proven track record can easily earn £90 to £100 (S$180 to S$200) an hour simply giving private lessons. That is a rate that even the very best Chinese teachers in Singapore cannot make: such is the nature of supply & demand determining the price a professional can command in his job market.
Whilst we are on the topic of tuition, another charismatic English teacher has captured my attention: meet Angmohdan - an English teacher in Singapore. This teacher makes a very good living in Singapore teaching students how to speak English properly. Whether you like it or not, Singaporeans have an extremely strong accent when they speak English and if you're happy with the way you sound, good for you. But if you would like to learn how to speak English properly without a Singaporean accent, then you go to Angmohdan and he will teach you. Certainly, if you are dealing with international business contacts around the world, then speaking with a strong Singaporean accent is a problem as it is an accent that is hard to understand: people outside Singapore and Malaysia will struggle to understand what the hell you are trying to say. You certainly would not be able to deliver a sales pitch to a bunch of Americans or Europeans in Singaporean English - no, you would need to switch to a more standard form of international English for that purpose.
However, in England, the very same people who make such mistakes with their English are the ones who can least afford to pay Angmohdan to do a 'My Fair Lady' treatment on them and polish up the way they speak. No, these are working class folks who don't really care if they make a grammatical error every now and then. Think about it: if your job involves mostly manual labour (for example: cleaning machines in a factory, stacking shelves in a supermarket or serving drinks at a bar), it really doesn't matter if your English is somewhat imperfect. Your job doesn't depend on your English being good: so if the waiter said to me, "Your drinks is ready." as opposed to "Your drinks are ready." Guess what? It really doesn't matter as long as I get my drinks quickly enough. In contrast, there are very rich professional people in Singapore who want to make sure they sound good when they speak English and then there are the kiasu parents who are willing to spend a lot of money to give their children any kind of advantage over their peers - hence Angmohdan has made a very shrewd business decision in moving to Singapore where he can make a lot of money.
2. Bargaining and negotiating
Now there are some industries where your pay is predetermined by a pay scale: when my parents worked as teachers in Singapore, their pay scale has been determined by Ministry of Education in Singapore. My father couldn't go to the school principal and ask for a pay raise, he had to work his way up that pay scale step by step. It was what my father called a 铁饭碗 ("metal rice bowl") because it was dependable and predictable, like the metal rice bowl, it was unbreakable and thus it was the kind of security he needed to support his family. If that is the kind of security that appeals to you, then you should choose a job like teaching that does come with a pay scale system like that.
In the private sector however, things are quite different. How much you earn depends on what kind of package you negotiate when accepting the job - I have been able to see this from the point of view of a gatekeeper. You see, when we go through the long process of selecting the right candidate for the job, it puts the successful candidate in quite a good position to negotiate the best possible package. We would first look at the candidate's existing package and see if we can offer something similar but in most cases, the new employers will have to offer a bit more to entice the candidate to jump ship. At that stage, the candidate will also be able to ascertain certain terms and conditions to be written into the contract. So for example, targets can be set: "if I hit all the targets on time in the first twelve months of employment, I get a promotion, will receive this bonus of $_____ and/or will receive a pay rise of ____%".
A good negotiator will always make sure that he starts a new job with clear goals to achieve and reaching these goals would mean either a bonus, a promotion or a pay rise. A poor negotiator would be so grateful to be offered the job that he would forget to start negotiating for any future pay rises. Many bosses are happy to set targets for their employees which will come with a monetary reward - after all, it is a win-win situation if the employees are motivated to hit their targets and deliver. This is no different from a mother telling her child, "if you score over 90% for your maths exam, I will reward you a very special treat. If you score at least 80%, mummy will still give you a treat but it won't be as good. But if you fail that maths exam, then mummy has a terrible punishment for you as well." This is nothing new, really.
Furthermore, if you have found your job via a third party like a recruitment agent, there is a tendency for some people to handover the negotiations to the recruitment agent. Now a good recruitment agent will make sure you get the best possible deal, but if you walk away from the job complaining that the pay offer is just not good enough, then the agent earns nothing. So some recruitment agents may pressure candidates into accepting an offer that aren't great and if you are not alert or assertive enough to demand more from your agent, then you could find yourself accepting a job with a rather poor pay package. Now this can happen anywhere in the world, so if you are dealing with a recruitment agent, I advice you to take a hands on approach to any negotiation about pay and never hand over control completely.
There is this saying, "you don't ask, you don't get" - I find this to be especially true when it comes to how much you get paid. It may not be always easy to ask for a pay raise, but there are many ways you can ask for more money. How about asking for a bonus - it is always harder for the boss to grant you a raise, but a one off bonus when times are good? It is far easier for the boss to say yes to that. There are also so many things you can claim for on expenses - as long as it is for work, you can often justifiably make your employers pay for so many things. When I worked for Snickers last year, I needed a new pair of shoes for the rehearsals and so of course, they paid for those new shoes and after the project, I kept the shoes. That's great because those shoes weren't cheap and I did like them very much. Also, if you are working long or unsociable hours - you need to make sure you are claiming overtime or a supplementary fee for the hours you are working. And if you are working in a company where the answer is always "no" when you ask for any of the above, surely that is a sign that you are working for the wrong company and that you really need to find yourself a better employer to work for! So don't make any assumptions based on the country of your employer, actually a lot of this demands entirely on your powers of negotiation if you're in the private sector!
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| Teaching will provide you with a steady source of income. |
In the private sector however, things are quite different. How much you earn depends on what kind of package you negotiate when accepting the job - I have been able to see this from the point of view of a gatekeeper. You see, when we go through the long process of selecting the right candidate for the job, it puts the successful candidate in quite a good position to negotiate the best possible package. We would first look at the candidate's existing package and see if we can offer something similar but in most cases, the new employers will have to offer a bit more to entice the candidate to jump ship. At that stage, the candidate will also be able to ascertain certain terms and conditions to be written into the contract. So for example, targets can be set: "if I hit all the targets on time in the first twelve months of employment, I get a promotion, will receive this bonus of $_____ and/or will receive a pay rise of ____%".
A good negotiator will always make sure that he starts a new job with clear goals to achieve and reaching these goals would mean either a bonus, a promotion or a pay rise. A poor negotiator would be so grateful to be offered the job that he would forget to start negotiating for any future pay rises. Many bosses are happy to set targets for their employees which will come with a monetary reward - after all, it is a win-win situation if the employees are motivated to hit their targets and deliver. This is no different from a mother telling her child, "if you score over 90% for your maths exam, I will reward you a very special treat. If you score at least 80%, mummy will still give you a treat but it won't be as good. But if you fail that maths exam, then mummy has a terrible punishment for you as well." This is nothing new, really.
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| Most bosses will be happy to reward employees who hit their targets. |
Furthermore, if you have found your job via a third party like a recruitment agent, there is a tendency for some people to handover the negotiations to the recruitment agent. Now a good recruitment agent will make sure you get the best possible deal, but if you walk away from the job complaining that the pay offer is just not good enough, then the agent earns nothing. So some recruitment agents may pressure candidates into accepting an offer that aren't great and if you are not alert or assertive enough to demand more from your agent, then you could find yourself accepting a job with a rather poor pay package. Now this can happen anywhere in the world, so if you are dealing with a recruitment agent, I advice you to take a hands on approach to any negotiation about pay and never hand over control completely.
There is this saying, "you don't ask, you don't get" - I find this to be especially true when it comes to how much you get paid. It may not be always easy to ask for a pay raise, but there are many ways you can ask for more money. How about asking for a bonus - it is always harder for the boss to grant you a raise, but a one off bonus when times are good? It is far easier for the boss to say yes to that. There are also so many things you can claim for on expenses - as long as it is for work, you can often justifiably make your employers pay for so many things. When I worked for Snickers last year, I needed a new pair of shoes for the rehearsals and so of course, they paid for those new shoes and after the project, I kept the shoes. That's great because those shoes weren't cheap and I did like them very much. Also, if you are working long or unsociable hours - you need to make sure you are claiming overtime or a supplementary fee for the hours you are working. And if you are working in a company where the answer is always "no" when you ask for any of the above, surely that is a sign that you are working for the wrong company and that you really need to find yourself a better employer to work for! So don't make any assumptions based on the country of your employer, actually a lot of this demands entirely on your powers of negotiation if you're in the private sector!
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| You don't ask, you don't get. What's the worse that can happen if you ask? |
3. Do you get along with your boss?
There are generous employers and stingy employers in both Singapore and the UK. It is overly simplistic to make any sweeping generalizations based on the nationality of your employer. So much of your success in this bargaining process also boils down to your relationship with your boss: do you have a good relationship with your boss? Have you managed to win his/her trust and respect? Or is s/he always working out ways to pay you as little as possible and still get as much work out of you (as in this rather extreme case in the hyperlink)? Thus whether you are working in Singapore or Seattle, Bangkok or Birmingham, Tokyo or Toronto - the quality of your relationship with your boss still plays a huge role in how much you get paid.
Personally, I would recommend that you invest in the relationship with your boss. Take a moment to find out what s/he likes and try engaging them on a topic that is of great interest to them. They may respond in kind by trying to engage you on a topic that is of great interest to you. Years ago when I was in the army, I worked for an officer who was not only vegan but she ate mostly organic food. I don't think anyone else in my unit noticed her dietary habits, but I made an effort to talk to her about it and showed great interest in what she had to say about going vegan. I don't think she ever thought that she could convince me to give up meat, but she certainly enjoyed having someone to talk about something that meant so much to her. My good relationship with her certainly paid off as she treated me very well
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| Do you ge along well with your boss and colleagues? |
Likewise, if there is something that annoys your boss, then please do not be dumb enough as to press the wrong buttons. Gosh, I remember in my first job in the City, there was a dress code in the office and all men had to wear a tie in the office. There was this guy called Andre who hated wearing ties and he would always take it off in the middle of the afternoon, much to the annoyance of the boss. Andre would literally turn his back when the boss walked into the office or hold a file up to his chest, just so the boss wouldn't be able to see that Andre had taken off his tie. These were grown men but at times it felt like a teacher cornering a naughty student. Some of the colleagues would tip Andre off when the boss walks into the office when Andre was tie-less. So this one day, the boss comes in and Andre dives under his desk in blind panic. The boss calmly walked up to Andre's desk and asked him, "Andre, what are you doing under the desk?" And sheepishly, Andre replied, "I dropped my pen, it rolled under the desk." And the boss then said, "Might you also be looking for your tie? It is on the table." The rest of us just burst out laughing at that point as it was so obvious that Andre would have to emerge from under that table sooner or later and the boss was just standing there, waiting for the moment. Ooh boy.
If you asked me, I don't think it should matter whether Andre wore a tie or not at work - I feel that what is more important was the work he did at the company, rather than his attire. But if not wearing a tie meant souring your relationship with the boss, then surely that was not a risk worth taking over something as trivial as that and it was foolish and childish of Andre to behave like that. Likewise, I remember another boss who got very annoyed at people who would be doing personal business on company time (such as surfing Facebook or using Twitter), the solution would be to simply avoid opening Facebook on your office computer - rather than trying to argue with him that it was not a big deal to do the occasional status update or send a short Tweet in the middle of the day. Need I state the obvious? Bosses need to feel respected and if you try to undermine their authority, it will come back to haunt you on payday. So please don't make any assumptions about how much you may be paid in London or Singapore for the same job - a lot of that still boils down to how well you get along with your boss(es) and that is entirely up to you.
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| Are you able to settle conflicts at work amicably? |
4. Working hours - Asian vs Angmoh culture
Another important factor is working hours: in Singapore (as in other East Asian countries), the working week is much longer than in Europe or Australia. However, the working week in America is also extremely long and they get far fewer holidays. With that in mind, you have to do some simple arithmetic: even if a worker is paid exactly the same in Singapore as in say, Germany: but the worker in Singapore is expected to put in twice as many hours as his German counterpart, who is better off? Such is the way local culture affects the way you work: typically the Germans and the Scandinavians have the shortest working week, but if you work for a German boss in Singapore, then chances are your working week will be shorter than if you worked for a Singaporean boss.
Putting the issue of money aside, what kind of work life balance do you want? Do you want to be able to leave work at a decent time and go see your friends, go do sports, go to the movies or maybe return home to spend time with your family? Or do you want to be stuck in the office at 9 pm or worse still, take your work home and find yourself struggling to finish your work before you go to bed? If you are a young and ambitious person who is determined to get ahead in your career at any cost, then fair enough you may be willing and able to work 70 even 80 hours a week. But what if you are in a relationship or have a family, what if you want to spend time with your kids - working that hard would mean barely having enough time to sleep, never mind having a life outside work - you cannot feasibly have a family under those conditions. So these are very practical considerations for anyone who wishes to have a life outside work.
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| How many hours a week do you want to work? |
So when you are comparing the rates of pay between two country, it is necessary to factor in working hours as you need to consider the rate of pay per hour. So in somewhere like Singapore or Japan, you are effectively expected to give up a lot of your social life and time with your family in exchange for an attractive pay offer that would come with the expectation that you work 60 to 70 hours a week. Young people are easily dazzled by the numbers when they think about how much they would like to earn, but if you are working so hard and barely have time to sleep - what good is the money to you when you do not even have the time to spend it? What is the purpose of wealth then, can you be happy looking at your bank statements or would you rather spend it on fun holidays with your family? Have you considered what is the opportunity cost of working 60 to 70 hours a week like they typically do in Singapore?
4. You wanna talk about PPP?
Since my reader did mention PPP (purchasing power parity), then let's deal with that for a moment. Many of you get the impression that life in the West is expensive. This is probably because some of you have come to London on holiday and tried to buy a coffee at somewhere like Harrods. The fact is there are a whole range of options in a city like London when it comes to food and lodging - yes you can live like royalty or you can live very modestly, there is something for everyone. What makes you think that everyone in London can afford to shop in places like Harrods and Harvey Nichols? Let's get real here: when you are here on a holiday, of course your tourist guide is going to take you somewhere nice and show you the more affluent parts of London, you are not going to be taken where the poor people live. That is why so many tourists get the impression that London is a very expensive city. It isn't, actually.
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| Can everyone in Britain live like the Beckhams? |
Even if the UK is generally a rich and prosperous country, not everyone in rich and certainly we have the full range of everyone from prince to pauper. Likewise in Singapore, not everyone is rich either and you do have people struggling to make ends meet in Singapore too. I have already covered this topic in great detail in a recent blog piece here (please click for the link), but the fact is any assumption that London is more expensive than Singapore is simply going to lead to the wrong conclusions as the situation is far more complex than that. In any case, your ability to enjoy a good life of luxury doesn't depend on how cheap things are - it is going to depend almost entirely on how efficient you are when it comes to earning money and your ability to generate a constant stream of income. Again, this boils down to your individual abilities and talent, rather than the cost of living or PPP - it is really time for the individual to take more responsibility for his ability to generate wealth rather than blame factors like the cost of living.
5. Finally.... Generalisations are quite frankly, downright dumb.
My reader really needs to ask herself this question: why should anyone be paid any less in the UK? They seem to have been brainwashed into believing that real wages are somehow lower in the UK but she was unable to offer any real reasons why. This sounds like the kind of brainwashing the PAP does with the younger generation: it is the lie that somehow life is horrible in the West and that they are better off living and working in Singapore. No, I am not going to tell you that the streets of London are paved with gold either and that life here is fantastic and infinitely better than Singapore. Any kind of generalization would leave you barking up the wrong tree because so much of this should be treated on a case-by-case basis. Will you be better off here in the UK? It depends on your personal circumstances.
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| Can you ever generalize about a whole country? |
As previously explained, how much pay an individual can command in the labour market is determined by market forces: supply & demand. Once that individual has found a job, it is still up to him to make sure that he negotiates a good package to maximize his earning potential. So within that context: sure it is possible to find people who would be better off working in Singapore compared to the UK, but this would depend on one of the following being true:
- supply is greater than demand for this person's skills in the UK , thus driving down wages
- demand is greater than supply for this person's skill in Singapore (eg. Angmohdan)
- this person has accepted a very poor pay offer in the UK
I would like to use the case study of lawyers - now this is a very prestigious profession that appeals to loads of Singaporean students. Are all lawyers in the UK earning the same amount of money? No, hardly. There are lawyers who studied at Oxbridge and have gone on to work for some of the world's most prestigious law firms like Baker & McKenzie, Linklaters and Clifford Chance where they have big corporate clients with very deep pockets. A lawyer of that calibre would easily make millions of pounds a year. And then you have the other extreme: did you know that you can still get a law degree from one of the universities languishing at the very bottom of the league table? Have a look at this league table which ranks all the law departments in the British universities system: the worst place to get a law degree in the UK is the university of Bedfordshire. Now someone with that kind of law degree could still have a career in law (perhaps working as a paralegal instead of a lawyer), but he would definitely not be earning as much.
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| Are all lawyers in the UK rich? Not necessarily. |
Now I have actually met someone like that in London - let's call him Paul (not his real name). Here's Paul story: he didn't do particularly well at his A levels but was still determined to pursue a career in law. Thus the only universities that were willing to grant Paul a place to read law were the universities at the bottom of the league table. So amongst the offers he received, he chose "the least worst option", which was a university in the bottom quartile on the league table. Upon graduation, he was rejected by all the top law firms the moment they saw the name of his university and the only offer for work he received was from a small law firm in Norwich which mostly dealt with property law. Now there is a fair amount of legal paperwork involved each time property changes hands and that was what this law firm did - it was a far cry from the drama of the cases in the High Court of Justice in London, but it was still legal work.
The money however, wasn't great as this was a very small firm and there was only so much they could charge their clients for the kind of legal paperwork they were processing. Furthermore, Paul was bored out of his brains with the kind of work he was doing; it was mundane, tedious and anything but interesting. Furthermore, he was working in Norwich which admittedly, isn't the most attractive city in England. Boredom got the better of Paul in the end and he started looking for a new job in London - it soon became clear to him that he wasn't going to be able to work in law in London; but by chance, he was interviewed for a role which was for data management. His work experience was deemed relevant enough and after acing the interview, he was able to make that switch to a new career. So if you want to talk about how much a lawyer is paid in the UK, well - there is no simple answer as demonstrated in the case study of Paul. Paul could have been an engineer, accountant, real estate agent or HR manager - but there is still no easy way to estimate just how much he may be earning simply based on just his profession and his nationality. So much of that depends on your individual circumstances - and as in Paul's case, things went wrong the moment he messed up his A levels exams. Paul's circumstances were unique to him, but they don't apply to anyone else.
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| Let's not make any assumptions on the issue of pay... |
So there you go, that's it from me on this issue. The bottom line is that you simply cannot make any assumptions about how much you may be earning in the UK compared to Singapore without taking it on a case-by-case basis and analyzing the individual circumstances. In some cases, such as Angmohdan, yes the individual would be far better off working in Singapore than in the UK. However, I would also think that many Singaporeans lack the kind of soft skills to thrive in a highly competitive London job market and they would struggle a lot once you pluck them out of their comfort zone in Singapore and chuck them halfway around the world in a foreign country. I hope I have done this very complex issue justice - please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments section below. Many thanks for reading.
Hi Alex,
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling quite honoured :)) Today's been a great day. Sorry I somewhat procrastinated about replying you since I've been terribly terribly busy D:. I will definitely be able to reply some stuff today since I finally found some free time and this is somewhat near the top of my to-do list. Anyway, great post and advice :) I must say I agree almost wholeheartedly to all the points you've raised. I've come to the same conclusion via self reflection not too long ago. But granted, same thing can apply to relationships anyway (pertaining to your point on investing in a good relationship with your boss), it can apply pretty much anywhere, including in school.
Though I must say yup I was looking more at supply and demand (my brain literally said nope I'm referring to supply and demand when I read the area of UK's salary men being paid lower"), however I'm saying because of supply demand too and given how Sg and London/UK's economy is very different, certain jobs may vary and areas that I've been looking at may have a lower demand in UK and thus command a lower salary there, I wasn't really saying UK means lower salary per se. Anyway since you brought up the example of lawyers, I'll illustrate with my own little example too: In fact here it's not even about the quality of their cert (it matters but let's ignore that for a moment), fact is competition has gone up so comparative advantage in terms of negotiating for a salary will have gone down, http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/education/story/surge-law-grads-singapore-foreign-degrees-more-affordable-20140906
(sorry if you can’t read the full article :/ gotta subscribe if you’re really interested I’ll see how I can get the full article to you, but then again the points raised coincide with what I’m saying here)
Then again, this is rather specific but hey for me, definitely civil service would pay better should I enter it because at least the Sg gov is smart enough to use lucrative salaries to sway talents to remain here. Well too egoistic to consider myself a talent but definitely if I put my heart to it I think I can offer worthwhile advice for the gov.
Anyway yes I’m beginning to see how important negotiation is as with maintaining good (if not strategic) and important ties, another thing added to my to-do list :D Regarding whether I get along with my supervisors, well I’m not there yet but definitely I won’t want to work for an unreasonable boss (unless they give me such a good deal but then again even then I won’t last long), I’m strong headed like that and while my patience threshold has increased I still can’t stand too much unreasonable bullshit. Be nice and I’ll keep it win-win, else the moment I have the liberty of changing my job I would do so haha. I laughed quite hard at your story of Andre because I’ve seen those funny episodes before (or even close to getting into trouble like that but I was being cheeky and got away relatively unscathed haha!) But yes I think your point here is clear: respect your boss’s authority and don’t cross the line and tolong lah don’t find trouble for yourself and piss them off haha
Aaargh. My turn to lose a long reply I had typed to you when I hit the wrong button. Here we go take 2.
Delete1. Firstly, I think that many young students have this notion of 'fairness' which is a bit naive: ie. "if I work hard I will be rewarded as that is only fair, right?" It doesn't work like that in the real world. In the real world, you have to claim credit, you have to make sure you get your boss's stamp of approval, you have to make sure you don't get stabbed in the back, it is a very imperfect environment where any notion of 'fairness' often goes out of the window because people will do anything to get ahead in a competitive environment. Thus it is important to create some kind of bond with your boss in order to get ahead in the game - think about it: does your teacher like every single student? Hell no, they are humans too and they will play favourites. It doesn't really matter in the classroom if that happens, but what if it happened in the workplace ? Think about it as that's an issue that will affect you even if you do work in Singapore.
2. Supply vs demand: yeah that matters no matter where in the world you work, that will be the primary factor determining how much pay someone like you with your skills can command. It will be important for you to identify an area where your skills are in short demand thus you can command a higher salary, do think outside the box, ref: the Angmohdan example.
3. Ref: Andre - he was just childish and stupid in sabotaging his relationship with his boss like that. He placed his own comfort and need to express himself before his career prospects and his role in the company. What should be more important to him? His career or his need to feel comfortable with the clothes he wears? Priorities, priorities. I am fairly ambivalent about the issue of attire at work but I do feel that we should never ever piss off the boss like that.
Regarding work-life balance and the topic of scholarships. Here I need to thank you again for helping me out haha, I really had the ‘scholarship boards are here to sayang and reward you for doing well’ mentality not too long ago. Now I suppose, there’s a lot more to it, but I would say it’s halfway in between ba….they aim to reward and then benefit as well (especially bonded scholarships), they give you money, you give them part of your working life later on. Pretty fair deal still I would say, since you can choose to turn down the scholarships. Regarding work-life balance, I would say yup I think I would have the ‘let me work my ass off’ period of my life, because I do want to be financially comfortable and independent and I’m willing to sacrifice my personal time for that, to a certain extent. But I think on top of socialising, I wouldn’t want to compromise on my health for money. Nono I think that’s a terrible investment, clique as it might sound with elders forever saying 健康是最大的财富, I would say it’s rather true. Especially when you realize if you treat yourself too badly your physical health will come back to haunt you later on in life and you would waste more money trying to cure the problems (sometimes irreversible), so yep. I’m not going to make that mistake again.
ReplyDeleteThough yup I like how generally angmoh bosses are more reasonable (oh I’ve heard nasty stories alright but verdict = work life balance? Definitely work for an angmoh boss). Haha I think I’m pretty ambitious, I hope I’m not falling into the daydreaming category since I am working on my baby steps to get to my goals. Regarding PPP…eh paiseh lah my Econs still has a long way to go just started, but that was the most reasonable argument in terms of the economics that I’ve learnt so I used that, haha I haven’t actually visited London, but it’s applicable everywhere, bottom line is you’re going there to relax for a holiday as a tourist: of course you will spend more than a local living on a budget lah. Btw I did read the previous post written for people like me, but I didn’t get the time to reply >.<
Ok that’s about it for this post, I’ll visit the other older posts probably in a (few) hours or so :) Laters!
I think the problem with working in Singapore, especially in the civil service is that if everyone else works till 7 pm or 8 pm, you cannot just leave at 6 pm just because you want to have a work life balance. There is a certain element of peer pressure when it comes to working hours - you worry you will look lazy if you leave earlier than the boss. A lot of that completely depends on your boss of course - my brother in law does work for a German company and people in his office often take the German boss's lead: ie. the moment the German boss leaves, everyone else leaves within a few minutes and the office is deserted by 6 pm - that's when my brother in law can go swimming, jogging, to the gym etc. Whereas my sister who works for a Singaporean boss can be stuck in the office till 10 pm. Urgh.
DeleteI have worked 60 - 70 hours a week when I was younger, but now I'm like - what do I have to prove to anyone? I have different priorities as I want to relax, I don't want to grow old too soon. I ran into an old friend last night and gosh he has aged so much, I mean, we're the same age but now he looks closer to 50 today whereas I look a lot younger than 38 - why? Hard work will take a toll on you. People literally will work themselves to an early grave.
Lastly, let's not make any sweeping generalizations about angmoh bosses being nice or Singaporean bosses being strict - what I can say however, is that there's something called the European working time directive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive It's a long piece of legislation applied throughout the EU which defines how long a working week is, what constitutes as overtime, how much holiday pay we are entitled to etc - that is usually what caps our working week because thanks to this piece of legislation, sure the company can work us beyond like 37.5 or 40 hours a week, but then that means that we can start claiming all kind of extra payments because we're entitled to by law. Thus it is the law that creates an environment where our working week is relatively short. There isn't an equivalent of the European working time directive in Singapore, so whatever overtime contacts between employee and employer is kinda just up to you to negotiate on a case by case basis - hence, you're on your own: happy negotiating.
And trust me, London isn't that expensive a place to live and as for salaries here... supply & demand will determine how much you get paid.
There is one point to consider about working in UK vs SG. Certain items are much lower than in SG. You can get a brand new car for £10k and housing in suburbs are much lower than London proper.
ReplyDeleteSo relatively speaking your pay is about 20-30k per annum but your quality of life is so much higher than in SG.
Can I also point out that most Singaporean students are not making a fair comparison. In Singapore, they assume that they will get free accommodation if they continue to live with their parents even as they are working adults, whereas in the UK, they would have to either rent somewhere to live or buy a home. Of course, being able to get free accommodation chez Hotel Mama & Papa is always a great way to save money, but they are in for a rude shock when they try to get on the property ladder in Singapore.
DeleteI would say that the problem with Singapore is the overcrowding that makes life difficult. It puts a strain on everything: commuting to work, inflating prices on the property market, trying to get your kid into the nearest primary school, competition amongst young graduates for the best jobs - it's just so intense, there's no personal space and you are living in a pressure cooker. Whereas in any less densely populated country, you have the luxury of space and life is a lot less hectic. You can't put a price on that.
Not having to squeeze on public transport day in day out and breathe in someone's BO is something I can't put a price on.
DeleteI watch lots of Top Gear (one of my guilty pleasures) and I remember there was one cheap car challenge where the presenters had to buy a car below 100 quid and drive from Bedfordshire all the way to Manchester. Clarkson managed to buy a car for 1 quid which is quite insane. Even at 100 quid it is still way lower and faster than a train ticket all the way there. All these are impossible in land scare Singapore. Since the government is determined to run a profitable public transport service you can either take a train or bus to your destination but not both since they stopped duplicating routes.
Another thing is that I've stopped living with parents after NS days and I can say that the rental in Singapore is just insane. Even in super expensive Tokyo there are single apartments with a bathroom, living area and mining kitchen for reasonable rates. Room rentals for just 1 room on the open market in Singapore is off the charts in no small part thanks to PAP's asset enhancement and BTO scheme.
Well the key difference is that you can have choice in a bigger country like the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA etc. If I want, yes I can choose to live in central London where property prices are very high but I can also move tomorrow and switch to a more relaxed countryside setting where I can have a lot more space to myself and enjoy a more relaxed pace of life. Singaporeans simply don't have that choice - even if you were to go to the very fringes of Singapore like Tuas, Woodlands and Changi, property prices still don't fall significantly the way they do in the UK once you get away from the city centre.
DeleteAnd I sympathize with you Choaniki - I can see why the government has to limit the number of cars on the roads in a small place like Singapore, but certainly the overcrowding on public transport is a huge problem that is only going to get worse as they keep increasing the population.
Hence I think that my reader is barking up the wrong tree when she is merely looking at how much she may be paid in Singapore - it's the cost of living in Singapore and the impact of overcrowding on the standard of living that will be more crucial. Perhaps as a young student, she hasn't seen that in other countries, things are different and that there is an alternative to life in Singapore.
I have alot of beef with the policies and bad planning of the current ruling party which is why i'm that desperate to get the hell out of Singapore. I can accept that the public transport network need lots of time to improve and having been to Tokyo and Shanghai i know how much worse the metro lines can be packed.
DeleteBut i fail to understand how the government expects everyone to pack into this tiny island without a roof over their head. This is the most basic of human rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_housing) and they can't even get that right so stop talking about fixing the CPF or public drunkenness.
The worse part is that they allow foreigners to come in and rent flats directly from HDB at subsidised rates while citizens and PRs have to look on the open market (where i have seen crazy stuff e.g. $1k for HDB common room and $650 for 30 sq ft room with toilet).
And assuming that you somehow qualify to get a flat direct from HDB you still have to wait up to 4 years for them to build finish you flat (so where do they expect you to stay meanwhile?). Unlike the pioneer or earlier generations HDB no longer have a walk-in selection so current landlords are having a field day fleecing everyone on the open market looking for a place to stay.
Now if my salary is 8k like that of Switzerland I wouldn't be complaining of high housing costs but the last i've checked, graduate salaries and even wages in general have stagnated for close to a decade. So no, PAP, you can't have laissez faire when it comes to the housing and transportation market then turn around and control wages thru unfavourable labour policies and mass import of foreign workers. Its all or nothing.
Oooh. See what I mean about the false economy about taking advantage of Hotel Mama & Papa? Things were a lot better for my parents when they were young adults themselves because the population of Singapore back then was around 2 million and thus market forces, scarcity and supply & demand meant that they could have humble jobs as primary school teachers and still have a reasonably good life, bring up a family and be fairly comfortable. But I do wonder just how rich you have to be to enjoy a similar standard of living that my parents did - certainly, I can't imagine primary school teachers today having the same standard of living. Just, no way.
DeleteHello to both,
ReplyDelete@choaniki: yup two big ticketed items that have huge differences in prices betw Sg and UK are property + car ownership. Unfortunately like I've said UK and Sg live on two very different economies if I were to really attempt to justify the difference betw the 2 economies I could probably write a few thesises on it and still only cover the tip of an iceberg. But I would say the housing and car issue can't be helped here, sad truth but yeah. But hey! You did have a chance to own a cheap car(well cheap in the local sense, certainly incomparable to overseas), there was a period of time few years back where COE was merely a few dollars, that's about 80k-100k saved as compared to now! That's a lot of diff imo. My parents used that chance to upgrade to a nicer car, good choice now the prices have nearly doubled. As for housing...bad luck. Singapore is wayy too small, can't be helped. Though once again, there were times where properties are affordable and undervalued (300-500k range for private or exec HDB) yup I know people who invested and are pretty much set now. Well then again, I must say I empatheise with the overcrowding problem. Recently it's been getting worse!! Buses and MRTs and almost always full ugh my private space T.T I don't know how I'm gonna get a car next time given the crazy prices but the peak hour (human) traffic drives me nuts
OK HR, I am going to ask you a question: why is the UK economy so different from Singapore's? We note the key differences: mostly in terms of geography, factors such as the population density do make a huge difference between the UK and Singapore and in terms of the cost of cars and housing, well you're merely reiterating what Choaniki has said already: it is frightfully expensive.
DeleteI do get a sense of you defending the situation in Singapore when you say, " Singapore is wayy too small, can't be helped. Though once again, there were times where properties are affordable and undervalued (300-500k range for private or exec HDB) yup I know people who invested and are pretty much set now." Allow me to react to that as someone who does have a property portfolio and is a landlord.
Within any property market, there are good deals, there are bad deals. You get a good deal when someone is desperate to sell a property for some reason and that's when you can drive a hard bargain - "you wanna sell this week? I have the cash and here's my best offer: take it or leave it, because I know you don't have anyone else ready to exchange contracts with you by the end of the week." But when you see a bad deal and a seller with an unrealistic asking price, you just walk away from the deal. Most of us sensible investors will only invest when we do get a reasonably good deal - nobody in his right mind would deliberately go for a bad deal.
So yes, of course there are some affordable good deals in any market, including Singapore but that can be said about any market. anywhere in the world: such is the nature of free market economics. When prices are not fixed by the government, they are controlled by market forces, supply & demand and that's when you can get good deals as part of the nature of free market economics. So if I may accuse you of being not only naive, but being brainwashed by the PAP. What you're saying is that some properties can be affordable and undervalued in Singapore - I'm saying that that's a feature that can occur when prices are not fixed; but you have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of supply & demand and what will predictably happen when you squeeze 6.9 million people into an island where there were only 2.5 million people a generation ago (when I was a child in primary school). Naturally, that would send property prices skyrocketing and what is defined as an "undervalued good deal" is still going to be pretty expensive to a young adult with a modest salary.
I'm still curious as to know why you think you can get away with saying that the UK and Singapore "live on two very different economies" without justifying it. Go on, I am going to hold you to account on that one - it sounds like the kind of PAP propaganda bullshit they use to brainwash young Singaporeans like you that oh no you cannot compare Singapore to other countries blah blah blah. Oh yes you can and the result is that it is going to make the PAP look bad, very very bad. That's why they don't want you young people to start comparing and thinking, "hang on a sec, I could be better off elsewhere rather than Singapore - perhaps it's because the PAP are so woefully incompetent?"
Alright alright challenge accepted. I’m a bit lazy and tired but okay lah since you want me to justify I’ll do my best ok? But Uncle Limpeh history and econs zai de don’t zam me too hard ok? I haven’t touched history per se since sec2 and UK vs Sg economy has never come up in formalized syllabus so this is just me and my own small lens of the big picture + my limited general knowledge. Here are the key differences between the SG and UK economy. First off I’d start with some basic econs info I’ve come across: Sg is definitely an open economy. Whereas UK while it is also a rather open economy, I would say it can definitely be a closed economy while Sg cannot survive. Ok now with that aside, here we go:
DeleteIn terms of business and global competitiveness, studies have shown that Sg outperforms UK, and also superior when it comes to gov red tape and the whole tax and welcome investments area. I think this is one point where PAP deserves some credit: yes lah Singapore is a financial hub and quite tax haven for expats- it’s crucial to Sg’s livelihood, they did quite well in encouraging investments.
Since the whole welfare vs capitalist part is rather overly emphaised I’ll leave it out here but yup that’s one key difference too.
Moving on, OK another key difference: Sg is more on state investment and enterprise (Temasek Holdings and GIC), I don’t think UK has that. And Singapore is mainly all about trade basically. Whereas UK has stakes in greater number of industries. On the issue of exports (ok I googled slightly here, UK exports cars –so I would say the car industry is a lot more vibrant there than in Sg) UK has a quite vibrant agriculture, fishing industry and another key difference is in construction. Sg’s construction mainly relies gov projects lah q lame but UK very different. Also they have mining and quarrying (yes basically banking on their natural environment while Singapore is so pathetically small with nothing- no matter how much we dig there’s no oil/coal or whatever lah LOL)
Sg’s exports mainly is refining of petroleum (28%) and electronics related ( integrated circuits etc)
Also, given the size and geography of UK, it is not so import dependent so yup. Sg is way more vulnerable to import issues. (perhaps that’s also linked to higher cost of living cause we have to import every bloody thing) Also due to population and land once again, UK would be have more labour intensive jobs than Sg. Therefore, the job compositions in UK and Sg would also be very different. Especially in the Public Service sector job composition I would say : Sg is small and most civil servants are teachers (40+%), whereas in UK, there would be more politically related jobs due to the greater number of political parties etc. While in Singapore, it’s just PAP and PAP and PAP with a small WP.
Lastly more on geography of both countries, the size of the country is so drastically different so the planning and city layouts would also be very different. Esp in terms of infrastructure etc two countries are still very different, even if both are first world countries (imo I get the impression infrastructure in UK is still rather unequal in the rural areas)
So okay, I don’t think I’m brainwashed not really, I was simply tired and wanted to be lazy. And actually chaoniki, it’s quite easy to get a roof over your head in Singapore lah come on, just the price to pay for it is pretty high, you’re basically stuck paying for it for…forever literally when you get past the down payment part lol. Ok that sums up my little “ Sg and UK economy is very different” statement.
HOWEVER, I wasn’t trying to defend the situation here, actually nah make that I can defend the situation here but I’m not trying to be biased towards PAP. Overcrowding and the lack of living space and the poor infrastructure planning is a BIG PROBLEM. It’ll just get bigger if PAP doesn’t fix it- but hey you can’t really just blame the gov, well yes they need to stop being so complacent and feel so entitled to PAP being the boss forever, still well it’s not all that bad overall (reason why I’m still here and might plan to stay here whereas personal preference LIFT you’re now in UK because it suits you better)
DeleteRegarding the housing part, no lah I’m not really trying to use exceptional examples to show gaps in the market and disregard the overall trend, I was merely trying to tell choaniki that aiyo don’t complain too much I know got reason to complain but hey…it’s somewhat your own fault/loss that you didn’t get on the property ladder or look out for good deals earlier, a few years back I think it’s around 2009- 2010, there were actually plenty of undervalued properties due to people trying to recover from the economy recession still/whatever other reasons, that’s where people I know actually managed to make a heckload outta properties by buying them at 300k-500k, they’re practically pretty set now. Same with the $1 COE example, I was simply trying to say that hmm given that I believe you’re older than me and already working, and you’re obviously intelligent and can tell that 6.9million is a bad idea/at least going to pose huge problems for living space and housing etc, why didn’t you invest in a house when its more affordable? Of course I don’t deny it’s getting frightfully expensive to get a house now (goodness, bishan resale flats are $1million now -_-), but well you missed good opportunities so… bad luck now.
But maybe not all’s that bad ya? Ref. to the point on ‘inheriting the house/getting money from relatives in Sg’. But if you’re that against ‘leeching’ (though I wouldn’t call this leeching since you’re still financially independent, you’re just playing the circumstances to your favour), then good luck I hope you earn enough dough to get a decent living quarter/migrate overseas and get a far nicer and better house.
Well HR, I am glad we have started on the right foot here because yes, overcrowding is a huge long term issue and the fact that there have been some fluctuations in the market means that such gaps were created as a result of supply & demand: we go back to economics 101, this is what is referred to as market forces. When property prices fell in 2009-10, was this because:
Deletea) the government built loads of new properties, increasing the supply and thus lowering the price?
b) demand for properties fell significantly, thus lowering the price.
Clearly the answer is b) - demand fell. Why did the demand fall so much then? As you have pointed out, we economy was in a recession then and times were hard, when times were that hard, people usually hold back in terms of big purchases - this is set against the backdrop of wage freezes, the threat of unemployment and an uncertain economic climate. Would you get yourself a 20 year mortgage if you have just seen a large number of your friends and colleagues get made redundant? No, you would be nervous because you don't want to be forced to sell your home when you are unable to service your mortgage.
You are assuming that somehow it is Choaniki's fault that he didn't have half a million Sing dollar sitting around in his bank account, to make a cash purchase when property prices were lower in the 2009-10 period - but since I do know Choaniki as a friend (he came to London and we hung out together) let me put this to you:
1. He is not as old as me and thus he has not been working as long as I have - hence financially, he is not as stable as I am in terms of simply being able to make a cash purchase or getting a mortgage for a a property without getting himself into debt for decades.
2. His long term plans have always been to move abroad and leave Singapore - so why would he continue to tie himself to Singapore by getting into property there and the subsequent debts/mortgage involve in that process? This may involve a period of transition (retraining, possibly taking time off work to scout out the new country etc) which may not be ideal for someone with a mortgage and after all that, he settles in a new country... with that in mind, he probably needs a pot of money to get him started on his new life abroad, and he is probably better off saving up that pot of money rather than committing to a mortgage in Singapore.
3. Unlike you, he cannot count on his parents for help if he does want to get on the property ladder.
Getting on the property ladder is a lot easier of course if you have plenty of spare cash lying around - ie. if you're rich, no problem. But even for someone like Choaniki who has a good degree and good job, he simply was not in a position to take advantage of the lower property prices in the period you mentioned and let me put this to you: what makes you think that you would have been any more able to take advantage of those lower property prices should you have been in the same position as him? OK your parents may have gladly given you a big sum of money - but if they were not in a position to do that, you would still be left in exactly the same predicament as Choaniki.
So you are rushing to judgement and making a lot of assumptions here - that's wrong of you to do so. I am going to say that you're acting in a very naive way about money and you're assuming that money is going to come along and that somehow everyone will make enough money to buy expensive properties. I admire your ambition and confidence but you are in for a very rude shock once you step into the working world. Money isn't that easy to come by and you will only really appreciate what I am saying now once you have earned your first proper paycheck.
@HR your view of getting onto the property market is too simplistic. Buying property or most large value investment in general are about luck and patience.
DeleteApart from the timing where property value drops until a reasonable floor you need the patience to save up capital. If you happen to by no fault of yours be too young, going thru a rough financial patch, be of the wrong ethnic group, be on the wrong end of the electronic ballot, be of wrong marital status, etc you don't qualify and hence can't get on the property ladder.
Maybe if you have lots of capital and more than 1 property you can afford to hold out for a good buying price. What if a baby is on the way or you're getting married how does HDB expect you to wait 4 years for the property to be ready?
Thanks for your reply choaniki. I would just like to remind you that HR is about 17 - 18 years old and hence her naive reply does reflect her age. She hasn't had a day in the working world, never mind be in a position to contemplate buying her own property hence her ideas are beyond simplistic - they are unrealistic and completely out of touch with the real world.
DeleteOK perhaps that last comment was a bit harsh, allow me to make a concrete point this time without being so dismissive.
DeleteInvesting in property is tricky business - ideally, you would want to buy a property that will appreciate in value so it will make a good investment. Hindsight is always 2020, it is easy for HR to look back and see that property prices in Singapore fell in 2010 and then rose again afterwards, but back in 2010, nobody quite knew where the world was going. The US and Europe had just plunged into a deep and long recession and the outlook was very bleak to say the least. Lehman Brothers went bust and the sub-prime mortgage crisis in America was making the entire global economy then very gloomy with little chance of growth. That was why Singaporean property prices stalled and fell as a reaction to the global economic forecast: was this the property bubble in Singapore bursting? Would prices continue to fall? What would happen in 2011, 2012? You see, back then, nobody had a crystal ball - nobody knew what was going to happen. There was much uncertainty and buying at that time would have been a calculated risk because you didn't know if property prices would continue to fall or if you would be making a healthy profit on your investment within a few years.
The worst case scenario is if you were to buy a property when prices fell, then instead of recovering, the prices keep falling and then the whole property market becomes depressed. That was what happened in Ireland - the property bubble burst big time, people thought great, time for a good bargain and buy cheap but they were in for a rude shock. The prices kept falling and those who thought they had a good deal were still stuffed when they saw the value of their property continue to fall.
And if you had a mortgage for 100,000 euros and the value of your property falls to 75,000 euros, then tough shit the bank is not going to care - you still have to repay your mortgage in full.
Looking back, we can see that Singapore did recover from the recession at that time and the property market bounced back quickly enough - but back in 2010, it wasn't that clear whether or not it was a good decision to buy then or not. You just never quite know with property and you want to make a good investment decision. Investing in property is tricky business, one that HR has not had the chance to think about in greater detail. Ah well, it's not in her A levels syllabus,
@alex: as for the unfair comparison coming from most sg students (oops idk if I fall into that category), but anyway I would say actually I would look at it another way. While it is true most graduates can't afford to get on the property ladder in sg simply cause the prices are insane for their salary anyway, or they do and then struggle with their debts for 30 years lol, and comparatively in a country such as UK or AUS or US, heck any country that has plenty of land, the difference is huge. However, I think you forget that simply because of the live with papa mama culture, there're also other 'perks', such as usually I would say Asian parents are a lot more willing to pitch in and help their children pay for part of the house or the deposit or wtv, or even lend them money. That is even more true now that in Sg there are a lot more single child families- don't dote on them dote on who! I don't think the same can be applied to UK(yes then again this is a sweeping generalization), but I would say given how western culture value independence in their kids, it's far more likely to see Asian families, or local Sg families fork out money for their children's property than those in European/American families.
ReplyDeleteRegarding SOL I did mention that but I decided to zone in on something more specific. Though yes I HATE OVERCROWDING. And it's getting on my nerves...personal space yeah. I don't really like it but I've learned to deal with it- aka know the little hideouts to retreat to when it gets too hectic. But oh don't get me started on the unhappiness/problems here I'll just keep ranting. But hey, each country has their own problems yeah? Though I would want to study overseas and broaden my horizons further, I like space, very free spirit here >:)
Well, I think about my nephew and I realize you're right - he doesn't need to worry about getting on the property ladder as he is an only child, so he can conveniently inherit my sister and brother-in-law's flat. I have two siblings, so moving out to get my own place was always something we knew we had to do when we grew up. In any case, I haven't lived with my parents since NS (something I share with Choaniki) so I can't imagine living with them again. I think we would just argue all the time and it would be unbearable.
DeleteBut if you do get along with your parents, then that isn't really a problem I suppose. And as for overcrowding... I'll leave that to my Singaporean readers to tell you all about it!
Please don't count on your parents to help out. I know many who are in their 50s living hand to mouth with no spare cash to fund their children's education much less housing. Unlike China where there is a definite 1 child policy, in Singapore more often than not it would be 2 or more. Personally i have 2 other siblings and don't count on my parents for a single cent ever since I left NS to join the work force.
DeleteSo please don't touch your parents retirement saving. God knows PAP are hard at work taxing your CPF medisave and what have you to fund their current aging population's healthcare costs so you probably are going to end up worse off then them when you reach retirement age (if ever).
Hmmm - I think it depends if you're the only child or not. My nephew is an only child and of course he is going to inherit everything from his parents, but like you Choaniki, I have 2 siblings so I never counted on them to leave me anything. It would be nice if they did but I won't be surprised if my parents had already written me out of their will and left every single penny to their beloved grandson. But even if you were to take my nephew out of the equation, let's put it this way: my parents have already raised me as a child, is it reasonable for me to expect them to help me as an adult? No, I would rather they spend their money on themselves at that stage. The fact is they are retired, they are no longer earning any more money - they are living off their savings now and whilst they do have a healthy pension and a good life, they should not be expected to spend any more money on any of their children.
DeleteI suspect the Mom and Pop rental subsidy as well as the Mom and Pop wedding subsidy etc is indirectly responsible for draining the current elderly population's retirement savings. Lots of kids are counting on their parents to support them well into their adult life.
DeleteWere this distortion ever to be removed i suspect PAP would lose power so fast a whirlwind would seem slow. Why do you think the current government is going back to the huge household days of old by coming up with this half-baked 3gen HDB flat scheme. So who is going to be the matriarch or patriarch of this household? Would there ever be peace if no one respects the other members of the household? These are questions i suspect HDB and the government never thought to answer.
Well you can't 'count on them' to pay for you, but reality is especially in the newer generation, there're far more single child families compared to your era. Oh I assure you I'm pretty sure the gov knows, and the whole '3 gen live tgt' bs is well...I would say a very lazy ass solution they are cooking up. Instead of solving the housing and overcrowding problem at its roots, it's trying to employ the easier ways out. I would say it's a terrible policy, they're getting way too lazy and complacent. A miscalculated move I would say, it's not that they never thought to answer, but they don't want to answer them. But I suspect it would go back to haunt them soon, maybe not now but definitely before Sg100. This is what happens when you run away from the problems instead of solving them, well good luck to them (or to me should I join public service). At one point of time, one generation has to pay the price for their ancestors, it always happens. If you want the easy way out, you can always pray pray or try to leave the problem completely (aka migrate), or you can stay and fight it the hard way, your choice really.
DeleteHR, I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. It is not a question of running away from your problems but realizing that the problem cannot be solved. Singapore has crossed the point of no return in terms of the overcrowding issue - the population of Singapore was just 2.5 million when I was a child and it has more than doubled to 5.3 million today and it is rising towards 6.9 million, possibly more. Even at 5.3 million, there is already a serious problem with overcrowding and this is only going to get worse.
DeleteThe only solution to that is to either: a) reduce the population by expelling new migrants like your family (since your parents are from China and not Singapore) or b) let's invade Johor and get more land. Neither options are really plausible since it would be pretty darn hard to send you back to China and nobody wants a war with Malaysia either. Even you have admitted that overcrowding is a serious issue and problem in Singapore today and I don't think you staying and fighting will do any good. You're merely going to subject yourself (and your children) to the overcrowding.
There is no solution to the problem - we're talking about a situation where the rich in Singapore will always be fine: they have the money to buy their way out of any problem. Overcrowding on the MRT? No problem, they will just get a taxi or drive their own cars as they can afford it. Inflated prices on the HDB market? No problem, they are only interested in luxury condos anyway. Competing for places in the local primary school? No problem, daddy's driver can driver sonny boy to the best primary school in Singapore. But if you're not rich - then your future in Singapore is looking increasingly bleak.
Hmm, I disagree. Well actually it's pretty much impossible to kick people back to china or india or wherever when they've settled down and 扎根 in singapore literally (like mine...somewhat. My family's been here for...30 odd years? That's actually before the population boom I would say.) And the invasion of Johor... haha I 哭笑不得 at that, well there's another...reclaim land. RECLAIM RECLAIM AND RECLAIM somemore, buy all the sand and blahblahblah. But once again that's not very feasible. Then of course the commonly used : let's build skyscrapers or perhaps next time upwards cannot alr...lets build downwards(lol!). But nope I'm saying that's a poor solution. Actually, here's my personal take on the issue. The population density isn't that bad in Singapore, well wasn't that bad until very recently, I was actually pretty okay with it staying at 5million. It just went rapidly downhill after the stupid 6.9m or 'possible 10m target', I would say only recently in the last year or so that I really felt the overcrowding issue bothering me.
DeleteI do have some solutions in mind that could drastically help the situation but meh talking about them here would in fact do no good, I'll see what I want to do with them, they're quite unrefined atm. So lemme just leave them out. Oh the main problem now is...despite the crazy gini coefficient...the rich is starting to get quite unhappy too. Well yes you can skip the public transport hassle and get your daddy's chauffeur to drive you to and fro school...but you can't avoid the jams on the road. You can afford a big nice mansion, but you can't escape the horrible human traffic outside of your house...at shopping centres etc. But well yes I agree...the poor'll have it increasingly worse if the gov doesn't step up their shit in Sg.
Time for a reality check.
Delete1. It costs a lot of money to reclaim land. It involves a lot more than just buying sand and dumping it in the sea - to create a piece of artificial land that is stable enough for you to build houses on safely without worrying about it sinking into the sea after a few decades, you need a helluva lot of engineering to create a stable surface. Yes it has been done in Singapore in some areas where the coastline is conducive to land reclamation, such as the whole Marine Parade area and Marina Bay but it is harder to reclaim land elsewhere in Singapore. You will be amazed at how the underwater geography around the coastline of Singapore varies a lot - I'm not saying that it is impossible to reclaim more land, but it will become more and more expensive to do so and it gets to the point where each flat built on that expensive reclaimed land is going to be ridiculously expensive - that is not a road you can afford to go down. Who's going to pay for that? The future tax payer. Oh that's you then. Good luck.
2. Building skyscrapers are actually expensive. Please don't look at the skyline of Singapore and take it all for granted that buildings pop up like toadstools from the muddy ground after the rain. The higher the building, the more expensive it becomes. You want 50 storey HDB flats? Sure, who's gonna pay for that? The tax payer? Oh that's you then. Say goodbye to your low taxes as the money has gotta come from somewhere.
3. Likewise, building underground is extremely expensive too. Given the amount of tunneling involved, even little things like air circulation would require a lot of engineering to make sure the ventilation and air conditioning works as you simply cannot open a window. You want to build expensive underground HDB flats? Who's gonna pay for that then? Oh that's you, the future tax payer. Please write a cheque payable to "the government of Singapore".
Sorry to knock all 3 of your solutions out of the water in one fell swoop, but you're assuming that there's a bottomless pit of cash for the government to spend on housing when really, there isn't. That's why they are selling you the romantic story of 三代同堂 rather than spending more money on housing.
You know what the rich in places like Manila, Jakarta and Bangkok do? These are very crowded cities as well, they just use their money to build higher and higher walls, so they do not go to the shopping centre for normal people but shop only at super expensive exclusive boutiques ... it is possible to use your money to avoid the crowds of normal people but that's not the kind of lifestyle that appeals to me.
Oh dear I think you got the Totally wrong impression. Those 3 are not 'my solutions' at all nonono you just reinforced what I just said about getting more land = rather ridiculous and impossible not to mention costly and stupid. I'm not sure if it's my English or you read them too fast -_-||| My solutions focus more on immigration policies, dealing with existing issues and other methods to ensure a better future and better living conditions. -I don't wish to divulge anymore hahaha cause they're not open for discussion atm. I'll be seeking some advice from people I know personally soon but im not too happy about putting them online-. But haha yup I just wanted to clear that up. And regarding the rich people lifestyle...not interesting at all. I've seen those exclusive high end malls before...not appealing zzzz
DeleteWell I can only respond to what you do post here, I can't read your mind if you have some great idea that you don't wish to discuss or reveal here.
DeleteHere is my take. As a young person starting out, the money is just one of many factors. It's the experience that counts. Whenever a young person such as HR is pondering over $10k salary vs. $7k salary, I am reminded that is how many Singaporeans think. Other factors such as experience gained, benefits, and other working conditions seem to matter less to the average young Singaporean. Imagine being a member of the PR team for the Obama administration for $5000.00 a month vs. a similar PR position in a local company for $8000.00 a month. As a young person starting out, I would jump at the chance to work for less money at the White House simply because the experience itself will take me places in the future. Likewise, as a teacher in Canada, I make only a modest albeit decent salary. However, my extended health care and dental benefits enjoyed by my entire family based on my job alone run in the thousands a year. My son's braces alone will have cost about CAD$15 000.00 when he is all done. Also, I work about 9 months a year considering all the holidays. Lastly, our union is active and strong, so working conditions are much better than in Singapore (I am guessing). I am not saying it's great being a teacher here. I am saying I'd rather be a teacher making less money in Canada than if I were paid more in Singapore. There is so much more to consider than, "How much money do you make?"
ReplyDeleteThank you for being the voice of reason from Canada Di!!!
DeleteHi Di,
DeleteI believe this is the first time I'm actually replying to you so hello there. But anyway, yup true that money is one of the many factors, but hey its a BIG factor, I'll explain why. While it is definitely true that EXPERIENCE IS VERY IMPT especially to youngsters because it'll bring you further in the future and hone skills, among other stuff like working conditions blahblah, money is still important. Especially to fresh graduates who either have a debt to pay or are just so happily to be 'an adult with no one to boss them around' and want to have some fun, that needs money. A lot. Of course there are 'short-sighted' youngsters who would jump at the opportunity of lets say, even 200 bucks more in starting salary and ignore other things. But I'd say personally for me, I value my own value before I value my salary, aka I would look at the culture of the company, future prospects and how much I can potentially gain from the job before I compare salaries (assuming I get 2 different jobs), in reply to your 5000 vs 8000 scenario, I would say I would jump at the opportunity for the $5000 job. However, unless I really like the job, I would move on perhaps in a year or two or even shorter. Why? I'm there for the experience and to learn, but of course also to add it to my CV- I see it as sort of a long term investment, I earn less now to earn more next time. Whereas in your personal job, I would say, does it not come down to money too? Yes your 'salary in black and white' may not be as high compared to some others, but your health benefits and holidays make up for it (now these are all 'hidden money benefits'), of course you could argue there're other issues like work life balance and working hours, stress levels etc but actually it still boils down to "How much money do you make?" Simply because for me personally, yes my time is precious it's something I can never get back, unlike money where I can always earn more later. However, if the deal is so good, I would forgo the others temporarily for the money simply because money is very important esp when one is not millionaire/billionaire rich:) But of course priorities change later on in life when people reach different stages, for example when you start a family and then have kids..priorities and perks you look out for in a job changes.
If I may offer a personal response, I would say that you have missed out on the issue of happiness. I could have made a lot more money if I had worked full time in finance - I was very good at financial sales and at the peak of my sales career, I was raking in over £10,000 (S$20,000) a month but I hated that environment so much that I had to leave it. Money doesn't make you happy if you really hate what you do. I am now doing other things with my life which are less stressful and more fun and I am so much happier now. So that's why I am more than happy to put my happiness before money - I find it rather naive of you to put so much emphasis on money and at no point did you even mention your happiness?
DeleteAh yes I knew I forgot something. So yes the whole 'happiness' thingy. Well....Alex you could only afford to be happy and switch jobs because you were already quite rich actually. If you had debts to pay and were struggling...even if you hated your job well tough luck you're stuck in it till you've more bargaining power. Anyway, actually I didn't forget about my happiness in life. I forgot to mention it as a pointer here because while I was typing my previous reply, I actually had the -of course i will pick a degree I want to study and enjoy and of course I would prioritise my happiness, thus I look at the work culture etc- but I suppose I forgot to explicitly mention happiness(which is also closely linked to job satisfaction). Yup if you hate what you do even if you pile stacks of money in front of you it wouldn't make you smile (you'll probably frown more because that means the boss expects you to work even harder), however money would solve many problems. So....I was actually referring to sacrificing short term happiness for the sake of money (if the price is right) in exchange for long term freedom and of course...happiness if you want me to put it that way. Hope that clarifies.
DeleteMy point is that pondering over a $10k job vs. a $7k job is more than just money. In my case, the heath care benefits I enjoy is not really money in my pocket. By that, I mean, if I do not bother to go to the dentist every three months, do not go to my chiropractor or my massage therapist once a week, or use physiotherapy, the money is not in my pocket. It is not like stock options (which are something else to consider in some jobs). Rather, my benefits force me to maintain well-being and that of my family. Sure, if I had to pay for my own dental visits, I will still get my teeth checked, but it will be once every six months (maybe even eight months!). I will not be encouraged to maintain my well-being as I do now. However, my health benefits are not the main reason why I chose to work and live here for a modest salary. Many of my peers from Singapore who went to the same university as my husband and me did went back to Singapore to live. All of them have been very successful professionally. One is the executive creative director of an advertising company. One is a professor at NUS, one has a private practice as a psychologist, ... If my mother were to compare what they make a month vs. what my husband and me a month, she would, in her typical Singaporean mom fashion say, "How come your friends make more money than you and your husband?" Yet, no one can say that our lives are worse off than our Singaporean counterparts. Let's see --- we have two cars, my son attends private school and takes tennis lessons, and we have access to good health care, etc. Because we live and work in the suburbs, housing is affordable compared to Singapore. You see, my Singaporean counterparts make more than we do to pay for the things we already enjoy --- cars, good education and enrichment classes for my son, holidays, etc. Canada is so big and beautiful that even if we cannot afford exotic trips, we can simply go to the lakes or to the mountains to build memories to last a lifetime. You mentioned that as a young person starting out, there are debts to be paid which is why money is important. Let you tell you that your financial responsibilities builds as you get older. Mortgages, child care, bills, expenses, retirement savings will plague most people as they go through life, So, as a young person starting out, decisions regarding job selection should be based on a myriad of factors with money just being part of the equation. If it takes you ten years instead of 6 years to pay off your debts, so what? You are still young after ten years. So, "How much money do you make?" is a very simplistic way of looking at job options.
DeleteGreat article, and a very interesting read. Thanks for the wonderful words of support :)
ReplyDeleteOoooh Mr Dan, we are honoured by your presence, thanks for swinging by my blog. And if I may suggest please, you should make more Youtube videos, it would be great for promotion and I can use them on my blog :)
DeleteI remember when I was a student in Singapore - I had plenty of white expat teachers (Brits & Americans) throughout my secondary school (RI) and at VJC (as I was a humanities scholar) and ironically, not a single white teacher made any attempt to correct the way any of us spoke English. There was just that .... resignation that okay, you students are Singaporeans and of course none of you are capable of pronouncing the TH digraph and of course you are all going to turn it into a D or a T or even a V or F. Quite frankly, I would have been quite happy for any of them to have corrected me but none of them did and it was only moving to England that made me want to correct those mistakes.
I would love to see more of you on social media - you have a great business and yes there are plenty of Singaporeans who need a lesson or 3 with Mr Dan :)