Jobless designer lamenting about a complete foreign takeover of his industry

By: Mr Loh (republished from Transitioning)

After months of going through interviews and sending out emails to companies in Singapore the response was totally zero.

Since last year I have been going to e2i and CDC to seek jobs. However, most of the companies that I have went through (recommended by e2i) were not at all responding or they didn’t call back in the end. What is e2i doing and is it just a place for the unemployed to spent their days?

I have been in design industry for more than 10 years, I have seen the big changes in my industry!

What are the changes you ask? They are the foreign designers from Malaysia, Philippine, PRC and now even Burmese that the government are issuing permit to allow them to take over the senior position jobs from Singaporeans.

What I know of that the local companies are looking for low cost ‘foreign talent’ to replace the ‘expensive Singaporean’ talents since few years ago. How is this possible?

These companies have reported to the MOM there are not many Singaporean willing to come forward for the interview (the fact is that there are Singaporeans coming in for interview but are not considered).

I knew that there are many design companies hiring all ‘Foreign talents” as designers and not even one Singaporean designer can be found! Instead the boss used ‘other position’ Singaporean in their companies to apply for permits (‘those designers’) just to meet the MOM quota!

I saw the CDC filled up with crowds of unemployed Singaporean both seeking for jobs and financial assistance. The number of unemployed is going to hit the roof again, I wonder if the statistics report by MOM is it ‘true”! From the news, we read the numbers of foreign workers increased in Singapore is only in the construction industry! Eventually even those from the services industry, white collar jobs like my industry, banking and even engineering industries will be the same!

Is there any organization able to check on MOM and give a actual statistic report so that we will not be kept in the dark!