I am a Singaporean degree holder who has graduated with first class honours from an established university. I even got a first position in my whole entire class for my thesis.
My CV is pretty ‘attractive’, according to the interviewers at the interviews I’ve attended, coupled with the 3 years of working experiences I have in the same industry.
However, till now, I am jobless despite applying to everything, even to jobs outside of my industry. You know why? The reason is simple – FTs are spoiling the market.
I was feeling really depressed when I couldn’t get anything.
So I went to Jobstreet and applied for the jobs there. Good thing about the site is you can actually see who else applied to the same job as you and what industry they come from, as well as the pay they are asking for.
To my dismay, I see 13 foreigners who have higher qualifications applying for the same job – a job that is willing to pay SGD $2,500 to 4,000.
Out of curiosity, I went to check it out. Guess what? All 13 of them are Masters holder and they are asking for WAY LOWER pay than me. I don’t mean $200-300 lower or anything like it.
One of them is a fresh grad with Masters and he/she is asking for RMB 3,500. That is only SGD $1,200+, mind you! Absurd right? That’s even lower than an ITE graduate’s pay.
Another one of them who has a Masters and 10 years of experience is only asking for SGD 2,500, which is the minimum that the job is paying for.
If these people are not spoiling the market, then I don’t know what else they are doing.
And it’s times like this that you start to doubt the credibility of their academic papers.
Because if they are indeed holding onto degree certs from credible institutions – ones whose school fees are expensive – they wouldn’t even be asking for these amount of pay. You don’t need to be genius to figure this out; it’s just common sense.
So @Just A Guy, perhaps you don’t feel it because you are not born here.
But let me tell you, for Singapore citizens who were born and lived here their whole entire lives, listening to their parents and teachers who tell them that if they study hard and get good results, they would get a good job and earn a lot of money, they would feel incredibly disappointed and letdown by Singapore’s current system.
And most importantly, they would actually be dismayed by the government’s lack of interest in protecting the citizens over the foreigners.
As a PRC, I’m sure you are currently enjoying life with a well-paying job – one that pays way better than what your home country has to offer.
Put yourself in our shoes before you post such a lengthy post because you do not understand our situation here.
Jes
Source: www.transitioning.org
