SINGAPORE — Middle-aged Singaporean who was a former Multi-National Company (MNC) director, now works as a private hire driver to sustain expenses and lost hope in finding a full-time job.
Mr Jeffery Khoo, a Progress Singapore Party member and candidate at the West Coast GRC in General Election 2020, posted a Facebook post about an encounter he had with a private hire driver with GRAB on Tuesday (29 Nov).
Mr Khoo who was travelling from the Kent Ridge Guild House of the National University of Singapore Society (NUSS), was surprised and saddened when the driver told him that he was a former NUSS member and had to sell off his membership as he has fallen on hard times.
According to Mr Khoo, the driver proclaims to have been a Commercial Director at a large MNC and left his job to start his own venture.
However, things did not work out after three-four years and he found great difficulties securing a job.
For the past few years, the driver is said to have been driving GRAB and now at 48, he feels all hope is lost to find full-time employment.
Mr Khoo then asked if the driver had taken up some training to upgrade his skills, which is the common suggestion, to better his chances.
But as the driver has ongoing expenses to pay, he has no choice but to drive as much as possible to increase income.
“Basically no time to attend courses. He further mentioned that he needs a job now and not “higher potential for a job” by acquiring more training,” wrote Mr Khoo.
Mr Khoo noted that one of the driver’s comments resonated with him, which is at the driver’s age, he would be more suitable for a people management role.
While taking up new skill sets may be undoubtedly beneficial, it also means starting from a lower level in most cases.
Mr Khoo also added that the driver was infuriated over the number of managerial roles that were given to foreigners and not Singaporeans.
According to Mr Khoo, the driver had not been aware that he was a member of a political party and was just pouring out his frustrations to a fellow Singaporean.
“Before I disembarked, I encouraged him that there will be change at some point in the future and we must not to give up hope. Incidentally, “Hope” in the Malay language is “Harapan”. ”
Netizens Share Similar Experiences
Mr Khoo’s post struck an accord with netizens who agreed with what was allegedly said by the driver with 1000 over interactions and over 200 shares.
Dicksen Chua wrote that companies will say that it has exhausted all possible situations to employ locals but then claim all locals who applied are not suitable, “so we have to get FT”.
“MOM believed or just can’t be bothered. If you really want to know that they really exhausted all means, MOM can request the companies to forward them all the resumes and interviews at random to see if is it the case.”
Another commenter, Kristoffer Sy said the driver’s comments are valid.
“When u cross 50, employers put aside your application for younger ones. Talk about increasing the retirement age! How to retire like that, when you cannot get a job?”
Mike Yeo shared that he is one of those who had similar experiences similar with the driver.
“Too old to re-employ, even if willing to start from scratch, no one will even consider. Even when I was willing to earn just enough to live, no one would give me a chance.”
“Regardless of whether within the same field or to try a different field, regardless of the tonnes of CVs I sent out, not even one interview.”
“Even if I went for tonnes of upgrading courses or re-skilling courses, it was to no avail.
That is why we are shunted into dead-end jobs like driving or security jobs or even delivery jobs.”
“And this will just make our situation worse because the longer we stay out of the normal workforce, the harder people find it to accept us back in.”
Yeo argued that Singapore needs to fundamentally change its hiring practices and also how to make the reabsorption of manpower better.
Aapache Z-flip also commented that all those Workforce Singapore (WSG) courses I took — 18 courses since he came back to Singapore in Nov 2019 — won’t get the job you wanted.
He wrote that the agents and employers will instead ask him to downgrade to be a cleaner or pamphlets distributor, despite being a graduate of RMIT with a Diploma in Production Planning coupled with 35 years of experience in MNC from facilities set up (whole factory) to inventory control & materials planning.
But after writing more than 500 emails, only two called him up for an interview.
According to Aapache, both interviewers were foreigners and got their citizenship only months ago.
Allegedly, the interviewers told him they have 10 to 12 purchasers respectively and only 1 – 2 respectively are locals. The rest are from their own Countries (Philippines & PRC).
“And due to my age and more experience than them, I was not selected (of course).” wrote Aapache.
Kum Meng Poon lamented that the Merdeka generation in Singapore is badly hit by a job change or loss symptoms.
“Whatever benefits we get from it, can’t replace the loss of employment or work that we have had. I used to say this many years back “I’m a tourist in my own country”.”
