"Foreign talent" is a dirty word and it is associated with many negative traits nowadays, and in my previous post on "Change, for better or worse" I used the term freely and I described the experiences of average Joe in Singapore about the issue

A more appropriate term to use in replacement of "Foreign talent" should be "Global talent", as I'm pretty sure that Singapore do contribute to the global talent list overseas. I know of at least two "Global talents" plying their trade overseas now. To generalise the effects of all global talents on locals like what I did earlier do not do justice to the talents at all. I'm sure that it takes mighty lots of courage and sacrifices to leave their homeland to work in a foreign country, and most of them do it alone. This reason alone deserve some level of respect from us.

From what I observe, we can classify global talents into 3 distinct categories, blue collar, white collar and highly qualified professionals.

The highly qualified professionals are sought after everywhere. These are the top bankers, researchers, doctors, and other experts in their own fields. There is no doubt that they contributed a lot to Singapore's economy and it is hard to replace them with locals. At times we may find some with reputations far greater than their abilities, but we need loads of them to be the regional or global hub of anything meaningful. They can set the benchmark for Singaporeans to follow, aspire and achieve in the future. Their presence here may create new jobs for Singaporeans. These highly qualified professionals are usually out of sight from ordinary Singaporeans hence they are hardly responsible for the global talent issue that most Singaporeans complain about.

These professionals do come at a price though. They usually demand a high quality of living hence they usually stay in private condos and drive luxury cars. This does have an effect on the COE prices and drives the demand for top tier housing in Singapore. Though by how much it is hard to tell.

White collar here is not limited to just clerical based jobs, but jobs that locals would want to fill in. They can be global talents here to study in local universities under subsidy or scholarships hence they have to work in Singapore for a few years. They compete directly with Singaporeans in the "not so level" grounds, they would rent HDB flats, or even get PR and settle down in Singapore. We need them here to boost up our educated work force and make Singapore more attractive to investors. But at the same time they pose a great challenge for locals to compete with. Most often, these white collar talents come from neighbouring countries and willing to work for less pay given the same work compared to locals. Afterall, getting the same job in say India will pay you perhaps less than half of what you get in Singapore so to them, it is a lot more. They can work hard for a couple of years, save up some money and return to their homeland. But for Singaporean who has to pay hundreds of thousands for a HDB flat, they can hardly afford this pay cut.

Just for fun, if you have to pay off $0.5 mil for a HDB flat and would like to do so with ease (means spend 20% or less of your income to service your housing loan) within 30 years, it means you need to earn up to $2.5 mil in that 30 years, or an average annual income of $83000, monthly income of $6944. (Mind you some design and build HDB can cost up to $0.7 mil or about $1 mil including interest). Which is enough to buy several condos in our neighbouring country depending on location. Nonetheless, I will stand to benefit a little from these foreign talents when I rent out my old home to these people.

Finally there's the blue collar global talents. They performed the task that Singaporeans would normally not want to do themselves. They stay in less than ideal conditions inside hostels. They get featured on TV regularly for abused by their employers. Singapore owes a great deal to them but Singaporeans hate to see them. Their presence benefits most Singaporeans but at the same time has the greatest impact on local low-skilled workers. These global talents effective keeps a cap on the income of low skill workers. Why should a company pay you more than a couple of hundreds when they have a ready supply of workers who are willing to work longer hours and at a cheaper rate. Would locals be able to afford food, transport, education for their family with that amount of income?

Perhaps our government missed out an important point when they dish out work fare packages year after year. It is the self-esteem of these lower income earners.

They are willing to work hard to earn a living in Singapore. Yet by taking up a job as a labourer or cleaner, they still have to depend on work fare packages from the government, NTUC vouchers for the needy, financial aid scheme from the schools etc just to get by in Singapore. How degrading can that be?

There's no doubt that Global talents contributed a lot to Singapore, especially if you look at the economics figures that our leaders are churning out day after day and you read about from newspaper day after day. For example, I remember reading a forum article by a grassroot leader saying that local complaining to him about Chinese national taking away jobs from this poor worker and he commented that they didn't realise that they help create a lot of jobs. But the big question is, what kind of jobs are created and why aren't the locals filling up those jobs?

For every solution to a problem, the solution brings a set of its problems to the situation.

(I started writing this 2 weeks ago but stopped due to busy schedule. Picked it up again since my desktop crashed on me and I don't have any pics to post)