On 15 March Ministry of Manpower issued a statement on labour market developments in 2022 that was dutifully reported on by LHL’s dedicated media monopoly aimed at ensuring his re-election and paid for by the taxpayer (oops, state media).

Even though MOM said that total employment in 2022 rose by an “unprecedented” 227,800, in excess of the growth in total population over 2021, the relevant figure for Singaporeans is the number of jobs created for citizens rather than PRs. Of course MOM fails to provide a breakdown, even though they have the information, presumably because the figures are unfavourable and would undermine the raison d’etre for the PAP’s continual insistence that Singaporeans benefit from the ease with which foreigners can work here. Resident employment only expanded by 26,800 whereas the growth in the resident population was more than 3 times that amount. Since PRs will generally have a much higher labour force participation rate than Singapore citizens as they are usually required to have jobs to attain PR status and are likely to have fewer dependents, this suggests that fewer citizens (particularly if we exclude new citizens created by the PAP in the last few years) were employed. The fact that MOM will not publish the data suggests that this is in fact the case.

In a recent article, I calculated that the citizen labour force participation rate (measured as the number of persons employed as a percentage of the total citizen population aged 15 and over) might be as low as 51% once NS men were excluded from the figures and reasonable assumptions about the percentage of PRs and foreign workers employed. MOM’s statistics are difficult to interpret as the definitions seem deliberately confusing but a re-examination of the figures does not alter my basic conclusion: that the number of citizens employed as a percentage of the total citizen population aged 15 and over is lower than 60%. This is lower than the figures for labour force participation in other advanced economies, most of which are in the mid to high 60s. These countries usually have reasonable to generous unemployment benefits which Singaporeans do not get and a host of other welfare benefits such as disability payments which would be expected to keep more of their population out of the workforce.

The PAP may trumpet its success at creating jobs for the total population but this is overwhelmingly slanted towards non-residents, both migrant workers and so-called FTs on Employment Passes. Not having a minimum wage helps to make non-PMET jobs unattractive to Singaporeans while low barriers to entry for foreign graduates, who are often subsidised to attend local universities without reciprocal rights for SIngap and deliberate tilting of the playing field against Singaporeans in general through Employer CPF and against men in particular through the burden of NS and reservist liability.

Singaporeans should be wise by now to the PAP’s attempts to fool them into believing that the labour market is tight and working in their favour or gaslight them into believing that constant upgrading and courses of dubious utility are the answer. For the majority of Singaporeans the PAP isn’t working.

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam