SINGAPOREANS who complain about foreigners taking away their jobs may be protesting too much, a well-known Singapore economist has said.
Dr Tan Khee Giap, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, yesterday cited figures showing that as of last September, about three out of 10 job vacancies - or 10,140 openings - had been unfilled for at least six months.
This was roughly the same level as the year before and implies that Singaporeans are turning their noses up at some jobs, he said at a seminar on Budget 2010.
To verify this 'voluntary unemployment', he suggested that every resident worker who is unemployed for more than three months should be made to register with the Workforce Development Agency (WDA), which will have to help him find a job based on his last drawn pay.
The WDA can then track how many times each unemployed person turns down a job - much like the statistics the Housing Board recently revealed of new flat buyers turning down flat options.
Dr Tan believes the WDA rejection rate will be fairly high, and that this will quash the perception there are not enough jobs to go around for Singaporeans. In this way, it would have the same effect as the HDB figures had in terms of public housing.
- The Straits Times
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