Overview of Singapore’s economy
Singapore is widely known as one of the best place to live and work for expatriate. Based on Forbes website, Singapore is rated as the 12th in terms of best countries for business. Moreover, Singapore is also a country that has a free-market that is highly developed and successful. The one thing that is spectacular about Singapore is that it is an open and corruption-free country, has stable prices and high per capita GDP. Surprisingly, Singapore also has higher GDP when compared to most developed nations("Forbes", 2016). Singapore’s economy is mostly contributed from exporting stuff such as information technology products, consumer electronics, optical and medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and on its vibrant transportation, business, and financial services sectors. Although Singapore has faced 0.6 percent of decline in economy during the year 2009, but they have successfully bounce back from it and has grown exponentially since 2010 with their strength on renewed exports. However, during 2014-15, the growth of Singapore’s economy was slower at under the mark of 3 percent, the reason being is because of the low demand of exports and weak growth in manufacturing sector during that period. Singapore’s government has been trying to restructure its economy by minimizing its dependency on foreign labour workers, labelling weak productivity and also increasing the wages of Singaporeans.
As mentioned above, the economic growth of Singapore in 2014-15 was slower which was under the mark of 3 percent due to the fact that there is a low demand on exports sector during that period. According to the Ministry of trade and industry Singapore, during the period of 2014, the economic growth of Singapore is largely contributed by healthy expansions in the field of finance and insurance as well as business services sector. ("Economic Survey of Singapore 2014", 2015) Besides, Singapore also boosted its standing as Southeast Asia’s leading financial and high-tech hub as Singapore attracts major investments in the field of medical technology production.
Employment rate of Singapore
Based on the graduate employment survey done by the Ministry of Education in Singapore, 6314 graduates from National University of Singapore took part in the survey. In the financial and business sector, the overall employment rate for Bachelor (Hons) of Business Administration (Accountancy) has a staggering rate of 99.0 percent, it also has a basic monthly salary of $3435 SGD. ("Ministry of Education, Singapore", 2016) However, Ronald Loh stated that, the employment rate in Singapore during 2016 were the weakest since 2004, especially for degree holding fresh graduates, according to the Ministry of Manpower in Singapore. Besides, the layoff rate in 2016 is also higher with 19170 layoffs compared to the year 2015’s 15580 layoffs. This issue has been growing ever since 2010 due to the fact that Singapore is in a weak economic position during that period of time. The unemployment rate in Singapore rose to 2.1 percent in the year 2016 overall, which is up from 1.9 percent overall a year before. The Ministry of Manpower in Singapore also states that, long term jobless degree holder was highest last year since the year 2004 at 1 percent, up from 0.8 percent in the year of 2015. (Loh, 2017) The human resources specialist Paul Heng also said that, the high amount of layoffs directly affected the amount of jobless degree graduates. Moreover, in 2016 there is an overall of 17000 Singaporean who were long term unemployed.
Aside from the 2016 employment rate, Yen Nee Lee from CNBC.com said that, the total employment in Singapore during the first 3 months of 2017 has the largest reduction in nearly eight years with the total employment in Singapore reducing by 6800. The reason being is because Singapore is currently restructuring it businesses to minimize its dependence on manpower. Besides, the decrease in foreign labour forces is also one of the reason why Singapore’s employment is dropping says the Manpower Ministry of Singapore. However, the unemployment rate of Singapore in the first 3 months of 2017 was 2.2 percent which is actually lower than what the experts’ estimation of 2.3 percent. The last time Singapore’s redundancy rate was higher than 2.2 percent was during the last quarter of 2009. (Lee, 2017) For years, Singapore has depended heavily on foreign labour to power its economic development nonetheless Singapore has shifted its focus on adapting technology and innovation to enhance its economic development. The managing director of Randstad, Michael Smith stated that, corporations are thrilled by the potential of adopting robotization and artificial intelligence in businesses because robotization and artificial intelligence plays a crucial role in terms of enhancing productivity, however the problem is how should the businesses hold its workforce and make sure that they actually have to ability to increase the value to their client base later on.
Selena Ling an economist from OCBC said that organizations in Singapore are either very reluctant to replace the former employer who left or are instituting a hiring freeze. Hence, some of the fresh graduates are forced to opt out for placement or continue their studies in a higher level. Besides, Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI) president Erman Tan stated that, graduates that studies general subjects such as arts and social sciences might have a harder time finding a job compared to peers that have specialised degrees. But, this does not mean that the graduates from general subject do not have any chances on landing a job. It just means that they must show their employer what skills or strength they have in order to stand out while being compared to their peers. Moreover, Walter Theseira and economist from Singapore Institute of Management said that the labour market in Singapore is still sturdy, and Theseira says that the graduates are having a hard time getting employed because on the high expectations and lack of skills that they have. (Mokhtar, 2017)
Singapore’s labour market is still sturdy with high demand on specific industries. However, jobless graduate employment rate increases because graduates nowadays tend to have high expectations on their jobs and also overestimating themselves. Most of the graduate expect premier working conditions and demand for high salary. They are also reluctant to work in small town. This is the main issue why Singapore has a sturdy employment opportunity but graduates are having a hard time finding an appropriate job. Thus, the graduates need to have a sense of competitive in order to solve this issue. Consequently, graduate labour market is greatly affected as the graduates has high expectations in terms of income and workplace. (Finch, Hamilton, Baldwin & Zehner, 2013)
In a nutshell, although the employment rate in Singapore has decline in recent year. But, there are still high demand in specific industries with high level of competition. Thus, fresh graduates need to develop their sense of competitive to help enhance Singapore’s graduates employment rate.