New Zealand wants Singaporeans as foreign talent! Would you go?

[eyes]

Actually I believe it's an apple - orange comparison when we try to compare our attitudes towards FT and those of NZ population.

Well most countries are pretty specific on what they want, the folks here are vague. So in assessment for example when NZ says they want mechanics, they specify it's heavy vehicle mechanic and not mechanic in general. If they say they want an automotive electrician, they don't mean electrician in general.

Such specific (and also strategic) labour targeting allows only good and measured supply of manpower into the country. Even the targetted countries they invite are very specific. NZ is relatively bigger than Singapore with plenty of opportunities and resources. Will folks from Singapore make NZ a stepping stone for a future migration to other countries?

In Singapore, we welcome all kinds of folks with dubious credentials to make our country their stepping stone. They use us as a stepping stone because they can't be readily accepted in their ideal destination country (note: this is what exactly a couple of FTs tell me before the spat in media began).

For example, the USA does not welcome (not to mention approve) further migration from Vietnam, India and China. So in order to be eligible to settle in USA, a ROC will need to first become a Singaporean or Malaysian to be qualified in their green card application to the USA. And they are 100% fixated to their initial ideal destination and no amount of brainwashing will make them consider questions like "How about staying in Singapore?"

Singaporean do not need such stepping stones to go anywhere in the world, our passports are globally welcomed, so the arguement that Singaporeans will use NZ as a stepping stone is unfounded.

Talking about supply of labour, the FT in Singapore can choose to switch jobs and apply a job seeing your immediate career demise. In most other developed countries, initial migration detates the range of jobs you're legally allowed to take up unless you have become a citizenry there (not PR). So the problem with job leeching does not occur in their countries like our mess.

If job supply is a good fit to job demand, job leeching is not possible due to legal controls, the country is already one of the ideal destination country and that the place is bigger with lots more opportunity and resources, will NZ citizens see us like the way we see things in Singapore.

The answer is obvious.

 

[night86mare]

no....

oh, ok, if you are talking about singapore, i am seeing no connection whatsoever.

it's like i started a thread about sheep and farming, then you came in to type that post. same thing. :bsmilie:

 

[night86mare]

Actually I believe it's an apple - orange comparison when we try to compare our attitudes towards FT and those of NZ population.

well, like you say, it's apples and oranges.

hence, perhaps the policy approach also apples and oranges.

how come one thing can be apples and oranges, but everything else is not leh? :angel:

 

[ArchRival]

oh, ok, if you are talking about singapore, i am seeing no connection whatsoever.

it's like i started a thread about sheep and farming, then you came in to type that post. same thing. :bsmilie:

what tokking you?

 

[night86mare]

what tokking you?

never mind!

:cheergal:

 

[Sion]

sorry, i am seeing that the thread is on NZ wanting singaporeans as foreign talent.

you are talking about them? :bsmilie::bsmilie:

"What you see is not what we talk." :bsmilie:

 

[Sion]

whatsoever.

....it's like i started a thread about sheep and farming......

Then we'll talk about koala. :bsmilie: :bsmilie:

 

[diver-hloc]

Then we'll talk about koala. :bsmilie: :bsmilie:

NZ got Kiwi.... no Koala :bsmilie:

 

[eyes]

The local FT policies is a lose-lose proposition.

Here's an example.

A local construction worker is specialised in mixing cement for works. He knows every type of cement and recipies of the right mix for the right job. He commands 1,800 dollars / month for his job.

An FT with sparse experiences comes in and say that he can do the same job and has been doing it in their native country. The differences is this FT asks for 950 dollars instead.

The human resources were extremely delighted. Another way to score credit with upper management by lowering down labour costs. So the local gets laid off and the FT is hired.

However, the FT's lack of intricate knowledge requires a close supervision by his project manager who is earning 5,000 dollars a month. Moreover, the FT's english deficiencies and cultural differences causes notable error in mixtures and animosity amongst other workers. More time burden is being shouldered by the project manager to reolve them. The wrong mixtures are non-recycleable.

The project manager's productivity diminishes due to senseless time wasted in supervising the FT and wonders if he should do the FT's job. The FT continues to suck up resources from the company in wasting mixtures and demanding time from the project manager to get things done to specifications.

Result:

Project manager (local): Productivity decreases, unable to fulfil the tasks he is hired for, low morale, work longer hours and unnecessary harder than the job requires.

The local cement master: unemployed, in deep debts of relentless utility bills, asks for tax payers money to tide over by going to public charity resources.

The FT cement mixer: Continues to demand time from the manager and waste the company's raw resources with wrong mixes. Animosity increases amongst co-workers. Wonder when he can hop to another local company and asks for higher pay based on his current local experiences.



I believe some folks here can even give an example of their own industries and even a photographic one.


Why is our own FT policies designed to be a Lose-Lose sceanrio when other developed countries develop sophisticated FT policies in view of creating a Win-Win?

 

[benruane]

Every country has pros and cons. NZ has higher taxes, yes, but cheaper cars and houses. Clothes and eating out are more expensive there. Internet services are kinda backward. Schooling for your kids is generally is much less financially onerous. But you get a different lifestyle. Not saying a better lifestyle as one's man meat is another man's penis ... oops, sorry make that poison. And you'll be missing your family and friends, of course.

I left NZ in Jan 2001 to come to Singapore to be with my then fiancé. I was a few days short of my 25th birthday. 9 years on, I still miss the place like crazy. I miss the lifestyle and just the comfort and ease you feel when at "home". As much as my wife and I have made home here, a part of me will always yearn for the Land of the Long White Cloud and all that makes Kiwis and Kiwiana unique. I miss the food, too

We've long talked of going back to NZ "one day". Maybe this policy decision will make it easier for my wife, in terms of finding work there. But she'll still have to contend with her own home-sickness.

I'd say if you're young with no children and relevant skills, then give it a go for a couple years. Would be good life experience, having to fend for yourself in a foreign coutry.

Cheers, Ben Ruane

 

[night86mare]

Why is our own FT policies designed to be a Lose-Lose sceanrio when other developed countries develop sophisticated FT policies in view of creating a Win-Win?

you know, in some ways i'm sick and tired of people equating "foreign workers" to "FT".

i'm sure they are not the same thing.

 

[night86mare]

I'd say if you're young with no children and relevant skills, then give it a go for a couple years. Would be good life experience, having to fend for yourself in a foreign coutry.

Cheers, Ben Ruane

and, they will also get to find out that the grass is not always as green on the other side as they think.


what you say is true, 2 weeks' holiday in a place is nowhere the same as living for say, 2 years in the same place. 2 weeks in a place, higher costs don't bother you, you can marvel at things like open speech, rustic looking buildings.. 2 years - the open speech becomes all pretty redundant , the rustic looking buildings carry equally rustic finishings and amenities, that's when the wonder wears off.


every place that is developed has its own unique set of problems. painting a place out to be perfect, without acknowledging it has faults, that is pulling wool over one's eyes.

i guess, if people like doing that, nz has more opportunity to do that irl.

go to nz = wow, magical land with nice lord of the rings scenes, and oh, it's no problem, just high taxes! wait till you actually live there.

 

[night86mare]

Why is our own FT policies designed to be a Lose-Lose sceanrio when other developed countries develop sophisticated FT policies in view of creating a Win-Win?

so do you think the united kingdom has a "sophisticated FT policy" that is "win win"?

come, say that it has, i got many stories for you too.

 

[eyes]

Let's say it's Aids day and we intend to invite doctors and pharmaceutical companies to talk and show us the devlopment in the area. Then out of no where a condom manufacturer sizes the opportunity to come it to maket their products under the veil of educating the audience in the importance of condoms and development.

At first hand we assumed that condoms and Aids belong to the same theme so we allowed it. Then only to realise that there's no talk about condom development but only stealing stage time to have their condom brand flashed on stage. The result: bad decision, no value add.

Under our own drive to recruit foreign talents, we have what you call workers riding the wave into the country under the same slogan calling for need to fill unfilled vacancies.

We cannot explain the disproportionate data between infrastructures, job vacancies and economic growth against foreign labour explosion.

Just as it sounds reasonable that the public views the condom stage time is part of the Aids drive initiative, wouldn't it be also appropriate to say the foreign workers are also part of the Foreign Talent drive in this country?

 

[eyes]

so do you think the united kingdom has a "sophisticated FT policy" that is "win win"?

come, say that it has, i got many stories for you too.

Wah... so early in your morning you already baiting me... I know it's night time over there but it's a working day over here leh.... hahaha... :bsmilie:

 

[night86mare]

At first hand we assumed that condoms and Aids belong to the same theme so we allowed it. Then only to realise that there's no talk about condom development but only stealing stage time to have their condom brand flashed on stage. The result: bad decision, no value add.

it's ok, i'd rather have a condom company promote their items than to have ris low stand on stage and tell us that she was the inventor of boomz and shingz. :bsmilie::bsmilie:

 

[night86mare]

Wah... so early in your morning you already baiting me... I know it's night time over there but it's a working day over here leh.... hahaha... :bsmilie:

nah, i just find it amusing that you label nz as a country with "win win policies" in that aspect, without qualification.

suspect that it is just a sweeping statement made to launch actual agenda, which is to say that singapore is country with "lose lose policies".

since know nothing much about nz, can only talk about uk.

 

[night86mare]

Under our own drive to recruit foreign talents, we have what you call workers riding the wave into the country under the same slogan calling for need to fill unfilled vacancies.

We cannot explain the disproportionate data between infrastructures, job vacancies and economic growth against foreign labour explosion.

i don't know, then at least call it foreign labour. i know it's semnatics, and maybe i'm nitpicking, but i think labelling what most people would agree to be a low-skilled job as requiring "foreign talent" is quite amusing in its own right.

the issue of foreign labour inflow, is separate from foreign talent recruitment, i guess, and they involve different policy adjustments, different discussions. lumping them together is just.. weird.

 

[hazmee]

Does New Zealand have Sim Lim Square or Cathay Photo? That would be a real deal breaker if they don't. LOL!

 

[diver-hloc]

Does New Zealand have Sim Lim Square or Cathay Photo? That would be a real deal breaker if they don't. LOL!

Hahaha..... good business idea, you can buy here and sell there.... :thumbsup:

then pay your high income tax.... and use as much welfare as you can :sweat: