Daily Lessons from Life 13 October 2014 - More grads suffer underemployment -The Straits Times Oct 13, 2014

Hkg SAR Protests Updates - "HK protesters clash with masked men": Not sure who is the mastermind and the so-called 'brains' or should it be known as 'brainless-brains' that orchestrated this 'masked men' trying to dismantle the barricades! 'Masked men'!! A bad move that will lend impetus to the protesters and fans sympathies from those 'sit-on-the-fence' Hongkongers!

"More grads suffer underemployment -The Straits Times Oct 13, 2014

MORE Singapore workers are getting jobs that match their skills, bar one group: degree holders.

The proportion of university graduates who have jobs but are "underemployed" inched up last year from the year before, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).

For all other workers, the underemployment rate fell. Unlike the unemployed, those who are underemployed have some form of work, but not as much - or not as high-paying - as what they are qualified for.

MOM defines an underemployed person as someone aged 15 and above who normally works less than 35 hours a week, but is willing and available to engage in more work. This covers those who are looking for full-time work but can land only part-time gigs.

Underemployment also refers to people who are highly skilled, but working in low-paying or low-skilled jobs. Generally, underemployment figures drop as the educational level rises.

On the whole, Singapore's underemployment rate fell from 4.6 per cent in 2011 to 4.2 per cent last year. The glaring exception are degree holders, for whom the underemployment rate has held steady and even climbed, despite the tight job market.

Some 2.3 per cent of graduates were underemployed last year as a proportion of all employed workers, up from 2.2 per cent in 2012 and drawing level with 2011.

Human resource players point to rapid changes in the economy and complacency among mid-level workers as some reasons for the underemployment of graduates. As economic sectors diminish in importance and new ones emerge, jobs are still being created for graduates - but they require new skills, and mid-career workers are not upgrading themselves fast enough, say experts.

Many professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) who are retrenched are unable to fit into new jobs. Left with no choice, they take on lower-level, lower-paying jobs.

Mr Erman Tan, president of the Singapore Human Resources Institute, likened the mindset to former star companies like Black-Berry or Nokia. He said: "A lot of PMETs are... very comfortable where they are, which is part of the reason they are not motivated to learn, unlearn and relearn."

Mr Max Lee (not his real name) is one such example. The former vice-president in his 40s was doing well in the electronics sector - with a regional management role in sales and marketing, coupled with a $20,000 monthly salary - until the industry's decline forced his company to restructure two years ago. His role was made redundant overnight and he was forced to move into a property-related role, doing corporate planning. The skills he had honed over the years were irrelevant in his new job, while his monthly salary fell to $8,000, a far cry from what he used to earn. His case highlights the small but growing problem of graduate underemployment in Singapore, to which the Government is paying close attention.

In March, Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin said that a graduate glut could result in "overeducated and underemployed" workers, as seen in South Korea and Taiwan.

Human resource experts have constantly reiterated that employees should take charge of their career growth in the organisation to ensure their skills stay relevant.

While employers and employees should share the responsibility for training and upgrading, workers must take the initiative to keep their skills up to date, said Mr Paul Heng, managing director of Next Career Consulting Group. If their training is not subsidised by their companies, they should fork out money for it themselves, he added. "Employees are still not prepared to pay for their own training and upgrading. Some are ignorant of the need to.""

This is an interesting reporting. Probably why the PM spoke about, and the ASPIRE Committee was formed, to deal with: what do you do with graduates that cannot find matching jobs or underemployed and 'pacify' &/or 'dealt with heightened expectations' of the graduates themselves and their parents who invested good money to put their kids through university education, whatever universities that may be!!

Lessons for me are:

1. if we are talking about NEW graduates, the heightened expectations of the graduates and their parents issue DEFINITELY featured prominently. It will NOT be pretty if the graduates refused to work at a lower paying job. So, for me, underemployed graduates are way better than unemployed graduates. Or as some writers to the AsiaOne forum pointed out: 'willing unemployed graduates living off their parents'!;

2. if we are talking about mid-career workers who are graduates, it is a different story altogether. The example of Max Lee (not his real name) is incomplete in that we need to know: was his regional sales and marketing VP job been made redundant or had been shifted to another country? If it is the latter, it is about jobs leaving the country. The worker has no control over it though he probably would have see it coming if his pay is S$20k/mth and if the markets are NOT in S'pore!

As for likening the mid-career workers' mindset to Black-Berry and Nokia by the HR practitioner, it is not true that these companies did not learn, unlearn and relearn! They tried but did not work out. In fact, Black-Berry is still trying to reinvent itself under the new CEO of more than 1 year!

Personally I find that Max Lee is quite fortunate to find a S$8k/mth job and he can live well IF he can adjust his lifestyle, assuming he used to spend every s420k/mth of his pay! What can he learn, unlearn and relearn to get a Regional Sales & Marketing VP job if there is NO such job in S'pore? Or there are SO MANY MORE out-of-job Regional Sales & Marketing VPs in the market looking for this ONE JOB?;

3. this phenomenon of underemployment of graduates SHOULD be quite evident since we have the examples of Taiwan, South Korea and China to learn from. If there are MORE graduates, it simply means they have to do jobs that used to be done by non-graduates. The SUREST way for them to progress is than totally dependent on their ON-THE-JOB Performance and their ability to learn and adapt and be flexible.

This issue ONCE AGAIN pointed out the 'complacency' and, dare I say, 'CARELESSNESS' of the government to have 'opened up 10% more university places' about 2-3 years ago and then recently talked about 'you don't need to be a graduate to have a good job and career'!

What we need to help Singaporeans and their parents learn is that: all things been equal, when we have more graduates than jobs, underemployment is to be expected and it is definitely better than unemployment!

Of course, the government's job is to create MORE JOBS for Singaporeans. To that end, the government has been maintaining that we need to have FOREIGN workers and TALENT to help us create jobs, good jobs too, for Singaporeans. Agree?