Singapore will continue to welcome foreign talent while helping talented Singaporeans reach their full potential. That's what the Economic Strategies Committee chaired by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugratnam says in its report:
Third, we must make Singapore a distinctive global city. The ESC is convinced that Singapore's future rests on growing a deep pool of highly talented and entrepreneurial people. Our open and multicultural society will be an increasing advantage. We must continue to attract top quality people from around the world, while investing further to provide the best opportunities for Singaporean talents to grow and develop, to the highest levels of expertise in a range of fields. The ESC also recommends support for the growing creative arts clusters, which will add character to the city and nurture new talents. Our programmes to rejuvenate our mature housing estates, develop eco-towns and regions with diverse lifestyle options, and make major improvements in transport connectivity will ensure Singapore remains a highly liveable place even as the economy grows.
Foreigners make up about 34 per cent of Singapore’s population of 4.99 million, following a long period of high economic growth up to 2008 during which Singapore accepted up to 100,000 people each year, reported the Financial Times.
And that has led to unhappiness. There have been complaints in newspapers and the internet about having to compete with foreigners for jobs and housing.
But the global city Singapore wants to be has to have a large foreign population.
That's a common feature of megacities, says Richard Florida, author of The Flight Of The Creative Class – The New Global Competition For Talent.
According to him, at least 30 percent of the population are immigrants in cities like Vancouver, Auckland, Geneva, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Perth and Sydney. Immigrants make up more than 40 percent of the population in Miami, Amsterdam and Toronto and a staggering 80 percent in Dubai.
I blogged about his book in July last year.
He ranks Singapore among the "first-tier cities" with New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Chicago, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Milan. He writes:
Singapore's government has developed a targeted strategy to spur a more broadly creative economy by investing in core creative clusters, pumping funds into higher education… Its strategy also includes investing heavily in artistic and cultural activity… In the meantime, it has made significant strides towards becoming a ,more open society by allowing gays to work openly in civil service jobs and relaxing its restrictive censorship laws.
Technology, talent and tolerance are essential for growth, he adds.
Not that he thinks the new high-tech economy is an unmixed blessing. It increases the income gap between skilled and unskilled workers, he writes.
That's the problem the Economic Strategies Committee wants to tackle by upskilling Singapore workers. It says in its report:
First, we have to boost skills in every job. We should develop an outstanding nationwide system of continuing education and training, to give everyone the opportunity to acquire greater proficiency, knowledge and expertise, from the most basic jobs to the most complex. Employers and industry associations, unions and government will have to work together to design better jobs. We recommend a progressive increase in foreign worker levies to incentivize companies to improve productivity. (My italics.)
So there is a move to increase the cost of employing foreign workers. But this is seen as necessary to increase productivity. A recent Wall Street Journal report on Singapore said, as I mentioned in a post:
Some economists say the most damaging effect of the immigration is that the influx appears to be putting a lid on productivity gains, as manufacturers rely on cheap imported labour instead of making their businesses more efficient. Labour productivity, or output per employee, fell 7.8% in 2008 and 0.8% in 2007—a phenomenon that could eventually translate into lower standards of living.
Manufacturing and services sector productivity in Singapore is about 55 per cent to 65 per cent of the levels reached in America and Japan, according to the Economic Strategies Committee, reports Bloomberg.
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