Daily Lessons from Life 23 September 2010 - 45% of expats' pay top $265K

"Thu, Sep 23, 2010 - AsiaOne 45% of expats' pay top $265K

SINGAPORE has the largest proportion of expatriate high earners compared to 24 countries around the world, says a HSBC survey.

The Expat Explorer study by HSBC found that 45 per cent of the expats in Singapore have an annual income of US$200,000 (S$265,000) or more. The worldwide average is 21 per cent.


Overall, Singapore ranks 4th in 'expat economics' - a measure of the financial aspects of expat life."

This is an interesting statistics. With the development of Singapore into the 1st world nation, it is perplexing why do we still need that many expats in our nation. Is there a failing in our world class educational system that we could not produce the required talent or that we are attracting so many leading edge industries to our shores where our matured talents that had worked in, for or even led some local subsidiaries of MNCs in the past 20 plus years, are no qualified that we need the NEW expats? It is another question the national leaders that shape the nation's destiny need to ponder over carefully.

Lessons for me are:

1. Singapore is one of the most open economy and country that welcome foreign talent to the extent that some Singaporeans are becoming increasingly uncomfortable due to the competition provided and the pressure exerted on living space, transportation, etc;

2. with most countries, the expats are normally brought in to establish industries that the home countries do not have the skills or capabilities to do themselves. Normally, the aim is to invite the expats to transfer the skills and expertise and develop the experiences of their local employees or colleagues so that they can eventually take over their jobs. At least that was the intention. It is true that NOT all the top jobs need to go to the locals if they are not qualified or not ready. At the same time, an economy with a lot of expats at the lower and middle level basically means that the locals are not developing to take over. Unless, in Singapore situation, the home country does not has a population to support the growth of the economy!;

3. this is uniquely Singapore indeed. At one time we have many locals running the branches or subsidiaries of MNCs in Singapore. It seems that the trend is reversing now! More expats are heading the local branches or subsidiaries of MNCs in Singapore now! At the same time, this could be perhaps due to Singapore MNCs growing in size and scale that the locals are heading Singapore MNCs! Of course, there are exceptions STILL where expats are hired to helm Singapore MNCs! e.g. DBS, SGX, and Starbub. Though I must say, these expats' days are numbered as Singaporeans are groomed to take over!

I welcome the expats to Singapore. At the same time, I truly believed that only the deserving ones should be here where Singapore does not have that type of expertise and skills and experience. As I once said to my PRC colleagues when I was an expat: PRC belongs to you. If I continue to work in PRC, one day I may be working for you!! This is how it should be. Locals running local companies or local branches or subsidiaries of foreign MNCs!