by Sivakumaran Chellappa
“Singaporeans’ anxieties over foreign work pass holders are being addressed, and the government has to adjust its policies to manage the quality, numbers and concentration of foreigners here”, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Such is the message by Mr Lee in his televised National Day speech in 2021.
Now straight to the point, should Singaporeans take comfort in this assurance and relax?
Consider this. In 2013 we were told, “If you look at other countries — China, Vietnam, even in India — they’re not talking about work-life balance, they are hungry, anxious, about to steal your lunch.”
But in his 2004 inaugural speech, work-life balance was an emphasis, to the best of my recollection.
What happened in the intervening nine years?
Perhaps the 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis had taken its toll upon us and had upset the balance, having us to write-off work-life balance, and we are not able to have it restored till today.
And yet again, the comparison of a National Day speech made in 2011 and the National Day message in 2021 are almost identical.
What exactly is the issue now? Let us get to the basics, as trivial as they may seem, let us state the obvious. Human beings need the minimum of resources to sustain themselves while some want more for luxuries.
The thought that is bugging many of our minds is whether those seeking luxuries in this zero-sum game are causing many others to be forced into the gig economy.
If so, how do we address this situation?
It has to be emphasised clearly at this juncture that those working in the gig economy are largely doing so to meet their economic needs in work areas which do not commensurate with what they are actually capable of.
In order to acquire those resources needed for a decent living, one needs to be employed, whether by an external person or self. Not only employed according to some definition in law but sufficiently employed, which is optimal to one’s fair economic capacity.
In our local context there is an intricate, seldom talked-about matter in this regard, which needs to be urgently addressed and had hardly been addressed by the establishment, that is underemployment.
At present, the status of being economically occupied is the binary status of being either employed or unemployed, which seems to be inadequate in description and requires tweaking.
Since those operating in the gig economy are often engaged in occupations way below their capacity, are they actually deemed to be sufficiently employed?
The intention of considering them employed, seems for the purpose of putting on record that they need not be included in any further economic or manpower policy considerations.
Perhaps after some compensation for their underemployment, they become statistics, and therefore the establishment is duly absolved.
It is now time for the establishment to officially recognise that there is an intermediate situation between the employed and the unemployed, there obviously being substantial underemployment in our current economic situation.
Consider this. Officially, the binary status of being unemployed or employed would only be indicated as 0 and 1. If the underemployment in the economy gets assessed and recognised as a numerical between 0 and 1, it would be more telling of the total overall state of the national employment situation.
Those who are underemployed could be indicated as a numerical indicator between 0 and 1, which would be more reflective of their situation. This will more accurately reflect the employment numbers and have them duly addressed.
If let us say a hypothetical situation of employment arises, where 75 per cent of the working population are in regular employment and are regarded as employed in the conventional sense and the other 25 per cent who are in a gig economy employment are deemed by the government as also being in full employment.
Would this be appropriate for the government to not take any further action for those underemployed, simply because the statistics deem all of the working population as employed?
The Business Times article, ‘Big questions being raised over gig worker welfare in Singapore’ on 24 August, further raises concerns about the state of affairs for workers in the gig economy.
One main aspect of these gig economy jobs are mostly – not limited to work in the cleaning industry, private vehicle hire and food delivery work is that they are in no way to be regarded or relied upon as a long-term career or could be regarded as a profession like any other conventional job.
Participants in these ad-hoc occupations are those seeking to make a decent living and having to resort to working under poor terms and conditions with more occupational hazards than the usual jobs.
The main reasons being that they cannot obtain better jobs or that their circumstances disallow them from having a full-time job such as having a young child or sick family member to take care of.
Their salaries or earnings are often below par with those of their peers in the absence of a minimum wage, though somewhat being addressed very recently through the requirement to have local workers paid a Local Qualifying Salary if companies wish to hire any foreign employees.
How did we in this country, known worldwide for its economic prosperity, came to be having such a sizeable group of people in such work areas?
What are the consequences of having such a group of workers in our economy?
The underemployed would fall under the category of being employed, by most official definitions and perhaps in law, hence not sufficiently noticed or subjected to government policies to be rendered assistance as compared to those who are deemed unemployed, until very recently.
First, the economic and related consequences to the individual. Each of us has our own human capital, which we rely on to make a living. Considering one’s economic life span, a person’s earning capacity is being wasted and deteriorated.
There are psychological consequences too. A person’s self-worth diminishes. In some extreme cases maintaining the stature of his character declines and crime is not too distant a possibility. Depression too could have an undisclosed correlation, almost certain never to be acknowledged, because a link is very difficult to establish.
Why exactly does the lack of financial resources among the population undermine the nation? This is an obvious question, but still, let us remind ourselves that this goes beyond the financial implications.
Imagine an elderly man in his sixties with a low income insufficient for his basic expenses.
What happens? Someone has to make up that shortfall, which very likely would be his immediate family. Would they be in a position themselves to provide that support?
Assuming the children are married and have their own families, his ‘money not enough’ issues would be passed onto his children too and grandchildren too if this poverty circle is not broken.
One could go on to cite a host of socioeconomic issues, linked directly or indirectly, to the lack of employment opportunities. In short, poverty and its consequences gripe the lower rungs of the socioeconomics, the clarity of which was refused with cryptic reasons.
To illustrate my point, let us look at the analogy of an iceberg. Anyone who knows basic physics knows that only a small top portion of the iceberg is above sea level and a huge
part of it would be below the water. Even those who do not know much about an iceberg know that an ice cube floats similarly on water. The iceberg floating on the sea presents a danger as demonstrated in the 1912 tragedy involving the luxury cruise liner, Titanic.
Look at the image of an iceberg which represents how unemployment and underemployment are represented.
The surface of the sea may appear calm and serene during normal times, after all, it is only a small part that is visible above (unemployment).
With the general belief that whatever is lurking underneath (underemployment) need not be much of a concern, most would only be looking only at what is visible above.
It will take an unusual event like a tsunami with high waves to expose what is below, and thus far hidden and unacknowledged.
Unemployment in Singapore hovers around 3 per cent as had been reported periodically for a long time.
Does that mean 97 per cent of the economically productive Singaporeans are optimally employed?
Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng should duly acknowledge and address this situation.
Underemployment should be reflected in the statistical numbers, to be explained and addressed, especially in light of a rapidly increasing population of foreigners in the workforce.
