First of all, let me assure you that I am not standing on anyone's side. Technically, I am not a local, I am a Canadian born Chinese, both parents are Malaysians from Sarawak but I have stayed in Singapore for more than 10 years and had received my Singapore citizenship in that time.
While I am sure some of you are sore from the fact that I am a Singaporean who did not serve NS, let me assure you that I have nothing but the utmost respect for the Singaporens who had built this country into what it is today.
So let me share with you a disturbing trend that I observed recently.
I work for a local company that is a subcon for one of the ISPs, we are the frontline helpdesk assisting the ISP's customer with any technical support. After being with the company for over 8 years, I had worked my way into the middle management of the Operation department.
Now I am sure, if anyone of you had called technical support before, you would find that most are staffed by FTs. 6 years ago, mostly by Pinoys, 3 years ago, mostly by Indonesians and recently, Burmese. Out of our staff of 60 customer service officers, we have never had more than 2 locals working there at any one time.
While many are eager to blame the employer for this problem, I would like to share my experience on the recent recruiting drive.
Recently, 3 positions opened up for our department. After preliminary screening by my HR department, 40 candidates are shortlisted for interview by me. 30 locals and 10 FTs.
Now, this is great news for me as I do prefer hiring locals over FTs. Please understand that this is not a personal choice, as I said before I am not pro-local or pro-FT.
My preference in hiring locals are unfortunately due to the fact that most of our customers are racist. Nearly half our calls start off with "Are you a Singaporean" asked by our racists customers and these racist customers insist on being served by locals only. As we do not lie to our customers, the 2 locals out of our 60 member staff usually handles half the workload.
OK, back to our main story, the interviews.
1 - only 4 out of the 30 locals showed up for the interview.
10 out of 10 FTs were present.
2 - highest qualification level for local is NTC cert with asking salary of over S$2000
minimum qualification level for FTs is Degree, granted, I myself do not really trust overseas degree (I had a PhD Burmese guy from the University of Rangoon who does rubbish work, fired him before his probation was over) but some of the FTs actually have NTU, NUS degrees. FTs asking salary is around S$1200-S$1500 range.
My boss (a born in Singapore, Singaporean) of course insist on getting FTs. But after reminding him of our racist customers, he relented and decide to get one Singaporean.
Come first day of work, the other 2 FTs showed up for work on time but the local is missing. After a few hours, we finally manage to contact him. He told us he had accepted another job and he would not be coming to work for us.
In conclusion, I got 3 new FTs as my staff.
Looking at this, is it really the employer's fault?
Would you not say that the locals need to rethink their attitude problem?
Originally posted by PedoBear:1 - only 4 out of the 30 locals showed up for the interview.
10 out of 10 FTs were present.
the remaining 26 probably got a job already. So its not their fault.
Originally posted by PedoBear:2 - highest qualification level for local is NTC cert with asking salary of over S$2000
minimum qualification level for FTs is Degree, granted, I myself do not really trust overseas degree (I had a PhD Burmese guy from the University of Rangoon who does rubbish work, fired him before his probation was over) but some of the FTs actually have NTU, NUS degrees. FTs asking salary is around S$1200-S$1500 range.
My boss (a born in Singapore, Singaporean) of course insist on getting FTs. But after reminding him of our racist customers, he relented and decide to get one Singaporean.
Come first day of work, the other 2 FTs showed up for work on time but the local is missing. After a few hours, we finally manage to contact him. He told us he had accepted another job and he would not be coming to work for us.
In conclusion, I got 3 new FTs as my staff.
Looking at this, is it really the employer's fault?
Would you not say that the locals need to rethink their attitude problem?
FTs got less expenses so they ask for less salary.
the local got a job already so of course he never turn up for work
bcos sporeans are picky..
stil havent taste the bitterness of life..