Daily Lessons from Life 14 September 2013 - Economic growth, jobs key to Government being able to provide for Singaporeans

"Economic growth, jobs key to Government being able to provide for Singaporeans - The Straits Times Sep 14, 2013 "I believe that the way to go is to make sure that the economy is doing well and there are jobs," said Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, who is also MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC. "It may not grow as fast as before, 8 per cent, 6 per cent, but we cannot slow down so much that we chase businesses away. If we do that, jobs will be lost and there will be higher unemployment rate and it will be a problem."" Another minister stating the obvious? 1. where are the jobs going to come from? which industries? what type of jobs? This the government can help by hiring more civil servants and hiring more workers (gold-, white- and blue-collared) in government linked companies and organizations. At the same time, and more importantly, the private sector employers, especially the SME, will provide most of the jobs besides the big corporations - MNC or local; 2. in the private sphere, the government's role is to provide: a stable and secured environment with abundance of local talents educated in one of the world best educational system for responsible and well paying jobs. This has to be so as the debate of WHY many companies operating in Singapore are NOT hiring Singaporeans but the 'cheaper and a lot more value-for-money' foreign talents (some are REAL and most are FAKE ones) because Singaporean workers (gold-, white- or blue-collared) do not measure up!?; 3. if local talents are REALLY GOOD but instead are replaced by FT (especially those FAKE ones), something is seriously wrong. The MOM seems to have conceded that in the Financial industry, the % of local talents occupying positions of importance and authority are SIMPLY TOO LOW and taking actions to rectify it. The same got to be asked of other industries since a whole generation of Local Talents who had worked with some of the World Best Companies for the last 20-30 years DID helm Asia/Asia Pacific roles before. Why the 'regression' here? We need to find out the ROOT CAUSES. Is it really true that our Local Talents are NOT good enough despite our claim of having the world best educational system? Yes. We need jobs for the many young local Singaporean, in ever increasing % graduating from tertiary and university education, while hoping that the older ones continue to keep healthy and work to earn a 'living' so that the government DOES NOT have to worry about the old folks' up-keep! The key questions are: 1. where are jobs coming from?; 2. how many are for Local talents and how many for Foreign Talents (Real vs. Fake ones?) Think about it ...