Daily Lesson from Life 16 March 2009

"Sun, Mar 15, 2009 The Straits Times - High-income once, low-wage tomorrow?


I know of former high-earners who took on ad hoc projects, or settled for wages that would qualify them for Workfare.

A recent New York Times article put the spotlight on this phenomenon of executives taking on 'survival jobs' as cleaners or data entry clerks in the United States. There, an estimated 1.7 million people were working part-time in January because they could not find full-time work, a 40 per cent jump from December 2007 when the recession began.


In Singapore, the number of those made redundant (retrenched or let go prematurely from contract jobs) jumped to 16,000 last year, compared to 8,500 in 2007. As at December 2008, 73,100 people were unemployed. This quarter, an estimated 10,000 people lost their jobs.

In the 2001 and 2003 downturns, professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) formed 30 to 36 per cent of those who lost their jobs, so the number now could be 20,000 to 26,000.

These figures capture the numbers who lost their jobs recently and are actively seeking new ones.


But they don't say much about another grim trend: that of people who are under-employed, who want and need full- time jobs but are working only part-time. Ironically, the professionals working in 'survival jobs' - transitional low-paying jobs to pay the bills - will be considered employed, and will not show up in national statistics on joblessness.

Though technically employed, they are no less in need of a job but their situation may fall under the national radar.


Of course this group tends to have more resources than the rank-and-file jobless. But prolonged periods of low pay will dry up savings, erode self-esteem and risk sending them into a spiral down the wage and job ladder."

It is not easy to maintain hope and optimism in the face of dwindling bank balances, grinding work with little satisfaction, and family anxiety.


Those with grit - and little choice - moderate their egos and expectations and take on a range of jobs to pay the bills, telling themselves the situation is temporary.

But this is the scary bit: sometimes, taking on a survival job erodes your opportunity of getting a good job offer.


A helping hand each month to get their families to stay on track financially, could help them stay the course and not start the downward slide to becoming tomorrow's low-wage worker.”

A very grim picture indeed. Question is: should the government helped the PMETs?

Lessons for me are:

1. save for the rainy days. Don't grow to become slave to your 'high lifestyle' so much so that you could not 're-adjust'!;

2. this government holds a hard line of no help until you showed you are absolutely dirt poor and that your family members could not help too! I don't think they are going to change the line anytime soon unless many of their people's are in such situation. So, reliance on yourself is still the best bet!;

3. as for the loss of pride, self-esteem, etc, I think we just need to be tougher. Will the government be able to give us 'high wage' jobs when these are over? Maybe, maybe not. The banking sector's high paying jobs, at least some of them, will be gone for a while. It is imperative that people have to expect big adjustment and the fittest will survive.

I know I sounded very ruthless and without any feeling. The truth is, this government is not going to do it for us - at least for now. Let's rely on ourselves! This is also a leader's behavior!