Singapore must achieve more with less

[phantom_opera]

http://gintai.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/singapore-must-achieve-more-with-less-by-ngiam-tong-dow/

this was written last year, b4 Punggol East election/ population white paper

Future social unrest will arise not from racial or religious differences but from the growing class divide caused by widening income gaps. The top 1,000 earn million-dollar annual salaries while the rest a monthly median income of US$3,070. The gap is untenable.

....
The key is to produce more with less manpower. The window to raise total factor productivity through application of knowledge and training is fast closing with the opening up of India, China and Indonesia. Singapore has lost two decades relying on low-wage, low-skilled foreign labour to drive economic growth.
...
We failed to bite the bullet in the 1980s to restructure our economy. There may be no second chance the next time around.

[chiaberry]

I hear people chanting that we should try to "increase productivity" with less increase in population. Be careful what you chant. It may happen. But look at what can happen with attempts to "increase productivity". Amazon.com's attempt to maximise productivity is scaring. There was a similar article in yesterday's Straits Times regarding the conditions in Amazon's UK warehouse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/11/the-secret-lives-of-amazo_n_387847.html

[teddybear]

The so called "increased productivity" is quite bull-shit if you are already using machine/equipment/automation to do most of the jobs. Beyond that, the "increased productivity" is due to factors not recorded officially, such as long off-office hours working, 1 person forced to perform 2 persons job due to so-called "restructuring" (aka job-cutting / stream-lining) etc.
It seems that in the name of "increased productivity" and reduced costs, the few people at the top get credited with the improved profits (because of reduced manpower costs) and hence increased pay, huge bonuses etc. May be we should also "increase productivity" of the top management, like CEO 1 person doing CFO and CTO job simultaneous (there is no need for 3 people to do these jobs) and that justifying increasing their pay by say 50% by reducing 200% pay from CFO & CTO? :p


I hear people chanting that we should try to "increase productivity" with less increase in population. Be careful what you chant. It may happen. But look at what can happen with attempts to "increase productivity". Amazon.com's attempt to maximise productivity is scaring. There was a similar article in yesterday's Straits Times regarding the conditions in Amazon's UK warehouse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/11/the-secret-lives-of-amazo_n_387847.html

[minority]

Those guys chanting do more with increase productivity. Dont get confuse with more productivity means lower cost.

Productivity i.e. automation etc. cost $$$

[ichigo55]

This is already happening ...
Many are realising that real quality work can only be performed by locals, a lot of times, skipping them for promotion too ... The so called talents, which are not really cheap, are simply messing with the productivity, causing more mess that needs to be cleaned up, thus the locals are already pumping longer hours becoz of that.

Please stop wasting the locals time and pay them fairly

[chiaberry]

So-called "increased productivity" is a double-edged sword. Those who are shouting less foreign talents, less population growth, we don't want 6.9 million, etc how would they like it if their bosses put on a monitoring device to track their every action and esp their time spent using handphone/whatsapp/facebook, how fast they do their job, etc. - this would be to closely monitor their productivity.

And yes totally agree that any additional revenue/cost-savings through increasing productivity would go first to the bosses and not to the individual workers.

So please don't shout so loudly for increased productivity of the existing (shrinking) indigenous Singapore citizen population. It will come at a personal cost to the individual worker.

[chiaberry]

Please stop wasting the locals time and pay them fairly

Locals may be more productive but organizations not necessarily willing to pay them at a higher rate for the same job profile. They would rather put in a (cheaper) foreign talent for the head count. Then their SWB (salaries etc) are kept lower. It's easier to quantify being a cold hard number. It is more difficult for a manager to quantify just how much more productive a local is to "prove" to the top management that it justifies their higher (fairer) salary. Because these justifications have to be done on paper and need to have a quantifiable basis in order for the top management to be able to measure in dollars and cents.

[Shanhz]

from the horse's mouth:

my fren has operators doing machining work. S$900 for malaysians. same job S$2,300 for philipinos and slightly lower for indians. the filipinos come in with fake degrees and can't do shit. the indians slightly better. the malaysians are best at the job and need little training.

[samuelk]

The so called "increased productivity" is quite bull-shit if you are already using machine/equipment/automation to do most of the jobs. Beyond that, the "increased productivity" is due to factors not recorded officially, such as long off-office hours working, 1 person forced to perform 2 persons job due to so-called "restructuring" (aka job-cutting / stream-lining) etc.
It seems that in the name of "increased productivity" and reduced costs, the few people at the top get credited with the improved profits (because of reduced manpower costs) and hence increased pay, huge bonuses etc. May be we should also "increase productivity" of the top management, like CEO 1 person doing CFO and CTO job simultaneous (there is no need for 3 people to do these jobs) and that justifying increasing their pay by say 50% by reducing 200% pay from CFO & CTO? :p
I think the senior leaders are already doing this by sitting on mutiple board seats. :D

[phantom_opera]

Discussion on productivity will only be useful when it is sector specific. Anybody working in construction sector can enlighten us whether productivity in construction sector can be easily improved (Kenobi-wan keeps saying our construction sector productivity is too low relative to Japan/US)?

For certain sector e.g. laying laminated flooring, exclusively Malaysians riding motorbikes ... productivity already very high

[eng81157]

Discussion on productivity will only be useful when it is sector specific. Anybody working in construction sector can enlighten us whether productivity in construction sector can be easily improved (Kenobi-wan keeps saying our construction sector productivity is too low relative to Japan/US)?

For certain sector e.g. laying laminated flooring, exclusively Malaysians riding motorbikes ... productivity already very high

i think KenoBiWan means using jedi powers to lift hdb pre-fab blocks and stack them up - just like luke lifting the x-wing fighter :D :D

[phantom_opera]

i think KenoBiWan means using jedi powers to lift hdb pre-fab blocks and stack them up - just like luke lifting the x-wing fighter :D :D

lol ... instead of 3y to TOP become 6 months, just employ a few Jedis

but but but one Jedi salary could be 1 million a year :p

[eng81157]

lol ... instead of 3y to TOP become 6 months, just employ a few Jedis

but but but one Jedi salary could be 1 million a year :p

WRONG, a Jedi is non-salaried!! earning a million a year would be boba fett

:D :D

[onglai]

walan i trained so hard just to be a construction worker??
:doh:

[eng81157]

walan i trained so hard just to be a construction worker??
:doh:

then you should have trained hard to be a Jedi

HAHAHAHA