TR EMERITUS

 Table 2: Redundancy

 Last updated: 30 April 2010

Source: Labour Market Survey

Unemployed Middle-Aged PMETs

Contrary to the uplifting economic recovery, I have been receiving alot of emails lately from PMETs seeking  career advice from our organisation.

Many of them belonged to the vulnerable age group of 40s – 50s.  Many are  also breadwinners  with young dependents and a home mortgage to boot.

It seems that even the recent economic boost of a double-digit growth could not arrest the escalating unemployment trend of our middle-aged PMETs. Many of these PMETs come armed with impressive degrees and a few accompanied by  MBAs.  Their resumes  glowed  with decades of working experience in senior positions but  sadly they remained jobless for many months some even for more than a year.

It is  amazing  to see that no employer is willing to take them on board even though they have slash their asking price by more than half of their former last-drawn salary.  

One PMET previously working in the construction industry   as a business consultant told me he managed to find work in a non-profit organisation after pulling some strings. His pay was a mere 25% of his last drawn salary and he is on a contractual basis.

“What can I do Gilbert?” he lamented. “I am already 59 years old.”

Under employment is also a major issue here as experienced middle-aged PMETs watered down their resume in the hope of  getting a lower position on offer. They also know that senior managers conducting the job interview will feel threatened if they employ someone with better qualifications and work experience than them.

Sensing that their own country is not appreciative of their skills and knowledge, many  PMETs have decided to work and live abroad when the opportunity arises. We all know too well by now that recently more than 5,000 Singaporeans have apply to migrate to New Zealand in the quest for a better future. I have not seen so many Singaporeans trying their best to flee the country until now.

The recent total demise of our semi-conductor manufacturing industry is also to be blamed for putting  many engineers off work as companies  resettled in cheaper neighbouring countries. 

Many engineers have to retool and switch over to a brand new career. Those who could not transit smoothly  due to personal reasons take up commission jobs in the  property and insurance careers. A few have no choice but to take up cab driving just to survive. Many have also downgrade their portfolio and expectations in the hope to continue working in our job-scarce economy.

What is exactly wrong with our modern economy right now and why are  our middle-aged  PMETs  continue to face re-employment setbacks when they are so well educated  and loaded with solid working experience?

1, Lack of legislation

There is a lack of adequate legislation protecting our middle-aged jobless workers from being re-hired.

In Singapore, many people know that their re-employment opportunities will be severely restricted if they are retrenched  in their  forties. After fifty, it is almost impossible to be re-hired and one should either switch to become a consultant or simply plan for early retirement.

Employers  have all along prefer younger workers for various corporate reasons and executives above the age of 40 years old face increasing pressure at re-employment. It is painful to see many middle-aged executives lowering their expectations drastically in the hope of trying to get back to the workforce.  

It is as if hiring an older worker is a hindrance and disadvantage.

Discriminatory hiring has being going on  for many years here but, unfortunately so far,  there is a lack of legislation to prevent such exploitation.  Companies continue to hire discriminately base on age, gender and even race at the expense of our local workers.

Companies continue to advertise using discriminatory terms such as Mandarin-speaking only,  below 50 years old need apply, female working environment among others. 

The Minstry of Manpower (MOM) has yet to show its legislative teeth by clamping down on  discriminatory advertisement prevalent in the newspaper and online media.

There is also little that the worker can do if he is not hired based on  grounds  of discrimination. He simply shakes his head and move on to another  hopefully fairer employer.

In other advanced developed countries, you can actually file a complaint   to the relevant governing body if you can find evidence of discriminatory hiring. There are also proper guidelines on recruitment  advertising  so that you are hired based strictly on two merits: your work experience and educational qualifications.  You can  leave out your age, race, gender, and photograph from your resume.

Some recruiters  have also told me that  senior  executives are apprehensive of employing well-educated experienced PMETs who may be rather unteachable and can  even later take over their jobs at the work place when they have learn the ropes. 

 I find that such fears are unfounded and reflect badly on the insecurities of our senior corporate staff. If a senior manager has such fear, he should not even be in his current position as he lacks confidence in his own work perfomance.

Singapore has struggled with the decade-long problem of re-employing  middle-aged workers and unless legislation is enforced stringently, my fear is that the pool of  unemployed PMETs  will grow unabated resulting in severe adverse social implication.

 We all know too well that when the breadwinner goes out of work, the family faces financial stress and marriages may even break up as a result.

2. The foreign worker  factor

Many people have also speculated that the chief barrier to re-employment for our middle-aged PMETs comes from  the  sizeable foreign legion of workers.

One in three workers in Singapore now is a foreigner and for a small economy like ours, this is a big concern as there may  not be enough jobs to go around.

More crucially, the foreigner worker who comes here alone can take on any job with a much reduced salary compared to the local worker saddled with family obligations and mortgage repayment.

Previously, we use to have two kinds of foreign workers in our country.

One is the unskilled blue-collared foreigner who will do all the work that most Singaporeans shy away from. They are our construction workers who toil away under the sun laying bricks to build our skyscrapers and gleaming shopping centres.

They also slog away at our many manufacturing plants laboriously poring over PCB boards for around $800 a month. They are accepted and even welcomed by our local population l  as they do not pose  any competition to the majority of our  local workforce. Without them, we will not be able to stay in our gleaming HDB flats and shop in comfort at the many mega shopping malls dotting our  country.  Their contributions are significant to say the least.

The other kind is the white-collared  professionals who come in as expatriates and they are here to make up for the critical skills shortage faced by our local talents. They  have attractive pay packages and are brought in rotationally by their corporations. Their contributions are well received as most multi national companies will not be able to operate  here without their presence and talents. This group is also welcomed and their contributions are enormous and crucial to our economy.

Now,  we have the third foreign group: the in-between foreign talent. They are here to take over the positions of our mid-range executives and managers and is seen as an unwelcomed competition for jobs. 

They  can take over any  positions in the office ranging from the front desk receptionist to the back end junior officer.

 In fact, local workers feel  that the S-Pass work permit holder will be the one to fear the most. They are the ones that can replace anyone in the office.  Thousands of local workers were retrenched during the past  few years and employers seek to reduce cost by hiring cheaper foreigner workers.

Employers will understandably continue to exploit the foreigner S-Pass work permit quota when they are face with a vacant position in the work place.  In any business set up, acquiring profits will be the supreme  corporate mission and there is no mercy here. To The employer, a worker is here to produce a piece of work and there is no loyalty or patriotism.

Right now, any employer can hire foreign workers if they are willing to pay a minimum salary of $1, 800 excluding the monthly worker levy up to a certain quota base on industry type. This is often cheaper than hiring a local worker who  can cost anything from $2,000 – $2,500 for an executive position excluding CPF contribution.  

To the tertiary-educated graduate with a few years of work experience and a family to support,  anything less than $2500 will be a financial struggle even if his spouse is working.

For the employers, at  the affordable cost  of $1, 800 a month, he can select  graduates  from many different countries and some come armed with many years of work experience.  The foreign worker is not only well educated, younger but also able to work very hard as he sees this as an excellent opportunity for him to resettle in a first-world environment.  

Back home in his third world environment, he is often paid a fraction of the salary that he can earn here.  It is almost too good an opportunity to miss even if he earns a initial salary considered  low  here compared to our local terms. He can start work straight away and later look around for another better  job.

For   the employer,  if he  has exhausted all his S-Pass holder quota,  for $2,500-a-month salary he can alternatively employ a foreign professional using the Employment Pass (EP) category. 

Furthermore, he has no quota  here and can employ as many foreigners as he wants – without any restriction.

It is  common knowledge by now that foreigners setting up shop here tend to prefer hiring their own kind as they can work together and speak the same kind of lingo. Thus, it is not common for foreign-run companies based here to hire  a majority of foreign  workers  in their offices with  local workers forming the minority.  Such foreign business setup does not benefit our local workforce here at all.

I feel that the S-Pass work permit category needs  a serious  tweaking  to better  protect the welfare of our local workers.  Companies should be encouraged to hire Singaporeans first before they resort to staff positions with foreigners. This is done in many developed countries so that local workers  are protected.

There is also nothing that the local executive can do to prevent his employer from terminating his service and replacing him with a cheaper  foreign worker. 

Our unions here are also weakened by the tripartite movement initiated by the government to better protect the well being of our businesses.  Even if the dismissed executive brings his case to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to seek recourse, he is often brushed aside or told to seek legal advice. The frustrated executive, wronged at work, often felt helpless  that he has no where to turn to seek justice.

3. Obselete Skills of Our Matured PMETs

Many of our middle-aged PMETs were displaced for the first time in their life last year during the major financial crisis. Some even could not send out a proper resume when they began their job search after been retrenched as they were gainfully employed all this while.

Many appeared lost and tried unsuccessfully to return to their old trade.

For those retrenched from the semi-conductor industry,  going back to the same trade is almost impossible as it is a sunset industry and many factories have pulled out of Singapore and re-settled in cheaper locations such as Vietnam, China and Thailand.

They face a bleak future as their skills are already obsolete for  the new economy and age is also against them. It will take alot of psychological re-adjustment for this group of professionals to retrain and return back to the work force. We all know too well that the older you are the harder it is to adjust and change.

This vulnerable group  not only has to lower their expectations drastically but also to take on an entirely different skill set to return to the workforce.

Of course, there are middle-aged PMETs who successfully switched careers and have happily settled down in their new job.  They managed to clear the huge salary  gap blockage and accepted the big pay cut that came with the career switch.

I remembered that I have to take a  $3000 pay cut to convert myself from a successful insurance agent to being a social worker.  There is alot of adjustment and  the family also went  through a period of tension as there is less disposable income to spend.

For those retrenched PMETs who decided to switch to doing something that they are interested in all along, the chances for a successful career shift are very much enhanced.

Many I know have switched to doing social work or teaching in their mid-age as they find the work both meaningful and rewarding.  Such emotionally taxing jobs also favour the older workers  as they are emotionally stable and dependable.

Nevertheless, many middle-aged PMETS  still have real difficulty switching career easily. That is probably why some retrenched executives can go  jobless for up to a  year with some lasting even longer.

It will be ideal if PMETs try to cultivate multiple sets of skills when they are still working so that in the event of a retrenchment, he can easily switch to another line.

 I know many PMETs take up licensing for taxi driving as a back up so that they have something viable to fall back on at least for the interim period until they find something concrete.

4.  Lack of unemployment welfare

A lack of unemployment welfare policy has placed  the middle-aged PMET into a desperate mode when he goes out of work.

There is no proper safety net here and this is one reason why jobless PMETs turn to any job that they can grab  even if its something that they dislike. 

For those who are not so fortunate, the waiting period can be devastating and depressive. Many jobless PMETs have entertain thoughts of suicide when the journey seems long and dark with no visible light at the end of the tunnel.

I have seen many professionals who are at a loss on what to do next when they are retrenched. After six months of fruitless job searching, many can turn psychotic and some even need medical attention. Many also give up searching for a job after endless rounds of interviews and rejection.

Prolonged joblessness does snaps at one’s self confidence and esteem rendering the person ineffective and negative.  He urgently needs a job so that he can regain back his self esteem but job hunting also requires alot of confidence and optimism and it soon becomes a vicious cycle.

Unemployed middle-aged PMETs, especially those who are  the main breadwinner with  young dependents, face tremendous pressure at home when their savings dwindle over a long period of joblessness. He needs to continue paying bills when there is no income coming in. Over time, he will turn to borrowing from friends and relatives when his savings turn to almost zero. He also could not job search properly as he is haunted by his desperate financial situation.

Unlike other developed countries that provide unemployment benefit for a season, the Singapore government does not believe in dishing out the dole for the jobless.  They are left to fend for themselves with some ending up in tragic consequences.

The government  believes that our workers will go lazy and dependent on such welfare handout and have only restrict welfare for the very poor. They forget that these  developed countries who provide unemployment benefit has  also  produce workers with very high productivity. They have in no way allow the unemployment benefit system influences their strong work ethics.

However, some may argue that we have government aid agencies in the form of Community Development t Council  providing interim financial assistance to the poor and jobless.

The  five Community Development Councils (CDC)  here only provide interim financial assistance to those jobless  people  living in HDB 4-room flats and below and they must have little savings in their bank account.

The application criterion is also very harsh and you need to provide your savings  record, CPF account, details of  your  family income among others for the officer to confirm that you are not out to fleece the system. 

You also have to sign a clearance form allowing the CDC to check your financial record follow by  a final home visit to ascertain that your house is not too lavishly renovated with expensive electrical appliances.

The  financial assistance  is normally given for not more than three months and the amount can be anything between $200 – $500 depending on  need. Re-application is allowed  but approval is done  on a case by case basis.

Such stringent application processing has actually frighten many genuine aid seekers from coming forward and for face-conscious Singaporeans,  many will shy away from approaching the CDC for any financial assistance even though they are in dire straits.

Naturally, the PMETs are excluded due to the strict application criterion here unless he stays in a HDB 4-room flat and below and has little savings in his bank account. His working spouse must also not earn above a certain salary scale in order for him to qualify for the hand out.

During the previous recession in 2001, there is suggestion of a unemployment insurance  plan whereby the worker will buy insurance to provide him a sum of money when he goes  jobless.

The idea was however shot down and the usual reason was given – our workers will turn lazy and too dependent on such handout.

Our government aid agencies, supposed to assist the matured  jobless PMETs, are also clueless as to what to do with them besides providing them with motivational workshops and some training courses.

Career consultants are also not trained sufficiently  to do career coaching and may be more suited to help the lower end workers to find jobs.

Many PMETs were frustrated when they seek assistance at CDCs and WDA as  they were given the merry-go-round.  They were also made to take courses that do not really benefit them much.

PMETs naturally are more demanding of the counsellors  because of their qualifications and long corporate work experience.  More can be done perhaps to ensure that better-trained career counsellors are available to help this vulerable group of jobless professionals.

Conclusion

As our economy evolves and most of the jobs created come from the service sector, more can be done perhaps in the work restructuring area   to attract our local workers to such jobs.

 Salaries can then be improved as employers expect more productivity from our local workers.

With more local workers available for employment in the service sector, hopefully we will lessen our dependence on foreign workers.

Proper legislation also needs  to be in place so that our matured workers are protected and can make a decent living in our own country. The S-Pass work permit quota needs to be further adjusted  so that employers do not have an easy excuse not to hire our local workers.

If not, we will continue to see a growing segment of our population feeling  sidelined and agitated. This can only mean adverse social implications for the whole country.

 Written by: Gilbert Goh

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