Bastion of Workers
The increasing penetrative lifestyle of this city-state is affecting the health and mental state of being. Singapore has one of the world's highest population densities, in terms of people per square kilometers. In comparison, London had a population density of only 4,700 people living in each square kilometre on average. England's population density is more than treble the European’s average of 117 people per sq km. Yet Singapore’s population density is far higher than that of London.
1 Macau 20,824 person per km
2 Monaco 16,486 people per km
3 Hong Kong 6,571 people per km
4 Singapore 5,539 people per km
5 Gibraltar 4,486 people per km
…
18 Korea, South 477 people per km
19 Netherlands 466 people per km
…
74 China 133 people per km
75 Moldova 133 people per km
…
172 United States 33 people per km
Statistically, it is indeed amazing we can squeeze 6000 people into a square-kilometre area. To cluster that many people in a tiny piece of land is definitely nothing short of claustrophobic. Compare this to America and Europe’s population densities and you will get the picture.
Public amenities are on the verge of breakdown. Take our very own world-class public transportation for example. Our comrades working in the transportation sector are perhaps one of the first to feel the strain of over-population and over-crowding.
During daily peak hours, it is a nightmare for transportation personnel and passengers alike. Continuous stream passengers hurried onto the MRT train platform, massively clogging up the surrounding space in the train stations. Trains are jammed packed even during non-peak hours. Torrents of passengers trooped in by the seconds and trains arrival rate are in blocks of 5 minutes or more. Bastion of workers rushed to board the trains. Such scenes at the MRT platforms are a daily sight.
The Ministry of Manpower must have its hands full as well. Perhaps this is an understatement. Foreign workers with their foreign culture, foreign background and foreign cortication throng the Manpower building daily in search for abundant employment opportunities.
Once, I overheard a conversation between foreign PRC men talking about birth certificate. It seems that a birth certificate is a necessary requirement for foreign job applicants. This PRC man was telling his friend there is no such certificate in his birthplace in rural China at that time. What he can produced was a handwritten booklet detailing his birth status and birth-date. Such documents seemed unacceptable to the local hiring practices, he was told when filled the employment papers with a work permit pass.
Yet foreign language certified paper qualifications are increasing becoming the norm, the acceptable, to most employers here. Rising labour costs has forced hiring of foreign talents a necessary evil, altercated paper certificate secondary. Perhaps the locals are losing out in this sense. With such an infinite influx of migrant workers, hiring local workers is just a perfunctionary compliance to the local labour law; it adds no value.
Containing labour costs are paramount to all companies in Singapore. With eye-popping figures on manpower costs rising, reduction of wages is first and foremost on most employers’ mind. Recent years, employers are desperate for ‘foreign talents’. Coffee shop owners jumped onto the bandwagon too. Stall helpers are no longer confined to Singaporean’s citizenry. Recalled that we are living in a globalised world now.
One good example such globalization of workers or ‘economization’ as I termed it, is the Mexican workers. Hordes of Mexicans risked their lives to enter the American soil for employment opportunities. Many braved untold dangers just to cross the border to eke out a meager living. Some of the lives ended tragically across the Mexican border. Luckier ones are deported back to Mexico without the necessary working papers. Each year closed to 1 million migrants tried to slip across the rivers and deserts on the 3,200-km US-Mexico border. In 2005, the US Border Patrol policemen apprehended over 1.2 million illegal immigrants so to speak.
Public health will be next in line to crumble due to over-population. Heath-care sector is severely burden by the double whammy of aging population and rising needs of our new foreign friends. Government hospitals and polyclinics are overwhelmed by tsunamic patient load. Not a single working day has gone by without long queues either at the pharmacy counter or doctor’s room. Apparently the hospital scene looked neater only because of technology. There’s something called the Electronic Queue Number System that does wonders in ‘herding’ the patients that would make a shepherd or goatherd cringed. Perhaps the most devastating effects felt in an overly crowded city is the spread of diseases such as the Influenza H1N1 virus.
The recent public survey on the hospitals and polyclinics’ service standards highlighted a disparity in the Singapore’s heath-scene as well. I felt that the institutions on the bottom of the list are being unfairly discredited. All staff worked equally hard; perception of inferior service standard might be due to the smaller size of the polyclinic, located in highly populated new towns leaving patients uncomfortable in cramped waiting environment. Under such circumstances, perceived longer waiting time, subjective individual grouses are thus amplified. We really need to give due recognition to health-care workers in spite of the hardships caused by the flood of migrant workers. With that, hopefully, it will not be either sink or swim motherland, for our health-care caregivers.
1 Macau 20,824 person per km
2 Monaco 16,486 people per km
3 Hong Kong 6,571 people per km
4 Singapore 5,539 people per km
5 Gibraltar 4,486 people per km
…
18 Korea, South 477 people per km
19 Netherlands 466 people per km
…
74 China 133 people per km
75 Moldova 133 people per km
…
172 United States 33 people per km
Statistically, it is indeed amazing we can squeeze 6000 people into a square-kilometre area. To cluster that many people in a tiny piece of land is definitely nothing short of claustrophobic. Compare this to America and Europe’s population densities and you will get the picture.
Public amenities are on the verge of breakdown. Take our very own world-class public transportation for example. Our comrades working in the transportation sector are perhaps one of the first to feel the strain of over-population and over-crowding.
During daily peak hours, it is a nightmare for transportation personnel and passengers alike. Continuous stream passengers hurried onto the MRT train platform, massively clogging up the surrounding space in the train stations. Trains are jammed packed even during non-peak hours. Torrents of passengers trooped in by the seconds and trains arrival rate are in blocks of 5 minutes or more. Bastion of workers rushed to board the trains. Such scenes at the MRT platforms are a daily sight.
The Ministry of Manpower must have its hands full as well. Perhaps this is an understatement. Foreign workers with their foreign culture, foreign background and foreign cortication throng the Manpower building daily in search for abundant employment opportunities.
Once, I overheard a conversation between foreign PRC men talking about birth certificate. It seems that a birth certificate is a necessary requirement for foreign job applicants. This PRC man was telling his friend there is no such certificate in his birthplace in rural China at that time. What he can produced was a handwritten booklet detailing his birth status and birth-date. Such documents seemed unacceptable to the local hiring practices, he was told when filled the employment papers with a work permit pass.
Yet foreign language certified paper qualifications are increasing becoming the norm, the acceptable, to most employers here. Rising labour costs has forced hiring of foreign talents a necessary evil, altercated paper certificate secondary. Perhaps the locals are losing out in this sense. With such an infinite influx of migrant workers, hiring local workers is just a perfunctionary compliance to the local labour law; it adds no value.
Containing labour costs are paramount to all companies in Singapore. With eye-popping figures on manpower costs rising, reduction of wages is first and foremost on most employers’ mind. Recent years, employers are desperate for ‘foreign talents’. Coffee shop owners jumped onto the bandwagon too. Stall helpers are no longer confined to Singaporean’s citizenry. Recalled that we are living in a globalised world now.
One good example such globalization of workers or ‘economization’ as I termed it, is the Mexican workers. Hordes of Mexicans risked their lives to enter the American soil for employment opportunities. Many braved untold dangers just to cross the border to eke out a meager living. Some of the lives ended tragically across the Mexican border. Luckier ones are deported back to Mexico without the necessary working papers. Each year closed to 1 million migrants tried to slip across the rivers and deserts on the 3,200-km US-Mexico border. In 2005, the US Border Patrol policemen apprehended over 1.2 million illegal immigrants so to speak.
Public health will be next in line to crumble due to over-population. Heath-care sector is severely burden by the double whammy of aging population and rising needs of our new foreign friends. Government hospitals and polyclinics are overwhelmed by tsunamic patient load. Not a single working day has gone by without long queues either at the pharmacy counter or doctor’s room. Apparently the hospital scene looked neater only because of technology. There’s something called the Electronic Queue Number System that does wonders in ‘herding’ the patients that would make a shepherd or goatherd cringed. Perhaps the most devastating effects felt in an overly crowded city is the spread of diseases such as the Influenza H1N1 virus.
The recent public survey on the hospitals and polyclinics’ service standards highlighted a disparity in the Singapore’s heath-scene as well. I felt that the institutions on the bottom of the list are being unfairly discredited. All staff worked equally hard; perception of inferior service standard might be due to the smaller size of the polyclinic, located in highly populated new towns leaving patients uncomfortable in cramped waiting environment. Under such circumstances, perceived longer waiting time, subjective individual grouses are thus amplified. We really need to give due recognition to health-care workers in spite of the hardships caused by the flood of migrant workers. With that, hopefully, it will not be either sink or swim motherland, for our health-care caregivers.
Comments