Singapore IT sector resilient against current recession?

With all the news about retrenchments  locally and abroad and how hard it is for people to land jobs, I'm seeing quite a lot of new faces in and around my workplace, quite a number of them fresh grads. And among my friends and colleagues, quite a few have switched jobs. My mailbox is full of alerts from job portals about new opportunities. So amidst all the doom and gloom, I'm just wondering, is the local IT sector more resilient against the current recession compared to the other industries?

Get your resumes into a thumbdrive before going to Career Expo 2008

Just returned from JobsDB's Career Expo 2008. In short, it is better than a lot of job fairs I've been to. That being said, I've not been to those since 2006. There's actually more booths manned by companies genuinely looking to employ people, rather than by educational institutes trying to get more students. And the place's not overly-crowded, which means a more pleasurable experience. The JobsDB staff are generally helpful, and some are pretty sweet-looking too :)

It seems they are trying to implement some IT stuff to facilitate the job hunt so we can avoid pen and paper, which is a good move. Save the trees, yeah? It would help though, that people are aware that they do not to bring hard copies but soft copies of their resume instead.

Some thing you need to note when you go to the job fair

• You need to fill in a form to get some sort of a pass for searching for or applying to jobs.


• Do bring a softcopy of your resume so you can update your database record (Else you'll have to enter it manually). The booth for updating of resume is to the left hand side of the entrance. Once it's done you get a green sticker.


• Now you can go start your exploration of the Expo.

MOM’s Report on Wages in Singapore, 2006

The annual report on wages in Singapore has been released recently by Ministry of Manpower. If you're wondering whether your recent pay increment makes your salary comparable to others in your industry, this is the best place to start. Take a look at the the reports here. There's a lot of data in the reports, and it can be used to find certain trends and info.

Top 100 jobs in Singapore

Salary.sg has put up a ranked list (two lists, in fact) of the top 100 jobs in Singapore in terms of pay. While I believe that pay should not be the sole criteria for evaluating a job, it remains a very important one. We do need to put bread on the dining table after all, and pay decides whether that piece of bread is slice of plain Gardenia or loaf from Delifrance.

As for the actual jobs in the list, I've taken a quick look and there's no surprises there. What is disappoint for me is that it appears that the pay for those in the public sector are not factored in, eg teachers, policemen and firemen. I can't find them in the list. It's worse considering that my job should be out of the top 100 if they had been included...lol

Wage differentials between the sexes

There's no doubt that men do earn more than women, something which we all recognize. What is interesting is that the difference is that the gender wage difference
ranged from 5.7% for professionals to 46% for plant & machine operators for those aged 35 – 39. Quoting the full report,

The differential mainly stems from the tendency for females to disrupt their workforce participation for family reasons which reduces the years of service and experience of working women. Other possible factors include differences in skills, qualifications, job nature/level and working experience as well as possibly higher incidence of males working overtime than females.

If this is the case, I see the huge gap as an indication of how some jobs can utilise IT to minimise the impact when women are at the workplace. I believe it's quite common for companies to have flexible arrangements to allow women to work from home.

Little difference between NUS Bachelor of Computing for honours and non-honours

This is somewhat surprising to me. From table 11, the mean monthly gross starting pay for a graduate with Bachelor of Computing is $2,544 while it is $2,600 for someone with honours. In terms of pay alone, the difference is not significant enough to me. The opportunity cost is one year of expenditure, lost income and experience. Perhaps there are other factors like the research experience gained during the extra year and that students with honours are more employable (87.4% vs 79.5% were employed). As a side-note, SMU students from the Information System Management had a mean monthly gross starting pay of $2,975. That's a pretty big difference considering Information Systems students probably learn the same topics in NUS.

Doing National Service increases your pay

It's true, from table 12, people who have served National Service have a higher mean monthly gross starting salary. But why? Does it imply that employers see that National Service makes a person better to handle work?

Some guidelines when choosing a job - 2007

Was talking with a friend about career options the other day, and was discussing what factors influences one's decision to choose a job over another. He sent me a SMS with the following guidelines, which I found to be an easy guide to follow. Shall keep it in mind.

Knowledge

What skills and qualifications do I need/have?
What kind of knowledge and training can I get (can be technical, managerial etc)?
Does the company encourage a culture of learning and knowledge sharing?
Exposure

What other aspects of the company's business will I be exposed to?
What opportunities are there to explore beyond my core capabilities?
Are there opportunities to venture overseas?

Money

Besides the monthly or annual salary, also look at other components like bonuses, leave, medical benefits, insurance or other kinds of flexible benefits scheme.
Power

Who will I be reporting to?
Who will be reporting to me?
What is the power structure like?
What sort of decision can I make on my own?
What kind of impact can I make?
Environment

Where is the workplace located?
What are the working hours like?
What is the working culture like (is it family-friendly, does it encourage work-life balance, etc) ?
What kind of people am I working with?

Well, Straits Times published some articles about Singapore's IT sector booming. Hope that a rising tide lifts all boats, including mine. Anyway, found this tool by MOM. It lets you do sort of a wage search. Overly simplistic in my view. If you really want to see the sort of wages people are earning, you can find some of the reports here. It's a bit dated, but I think you can factor in a 10-15% increase if you decide to use it as an anchor for salary discussions.

Why “The Peak” pales in comparison to “Today”

There's a new drama on Channel 8 starring Christopher Lee, Qi Yuwu, Elvin Ng, Jeanette Aw, Dawn Yeoh and Ben Yeo. It's supposed to showcase Singapore's offshore, marine and maritime industry, and I also suspect it's for manpower purposes. The cast certainly has a magnetic hold on the audience (Jeanette looks conspicuously fair though she's supposed to work under the sun, but I think she looks better that way), but I'm not sure that people are going to be attracted to the industry because of the show.

One important factor that is going to make job-seekers consider taking up a job in the industry, of course, is pay. Well, here's an excerpt of an article from Today on Jan 6, 2007:

Keppel Offshore & Marine (O&M) is paying out a record 7.2-month bonus to all its 7,700 employees this year, topping the 6.2 months given out last year. The good news comes after record order completions and timely deliveries for all its projects in the past 12 months.
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Keppel O&M, a subsidiary of Keppel Corporation Limited, completed and delivered 26 new builds and conversions totalling $2 billion, all on time and within budget.

According to a friend,even though the average EEE grad's pay in this industry is slightly below average, the 6-7 months of bonus more than makes up for it. And they have projects lined up to 2010!

Anyway, I was quite surprised by Qi Yuwu when he spoke English, quite decently too. :-)

When higher education harms

While we usually equate higher education with increased job opportunities, this is not the case when the economy is bearish. I can remember that ITE and poly graduates were more employable when I went for a career talk about two years ago, and the we were shown some figures about the employability of these grads during the downturn. in India and China. Recently, there's been news that 1.24 million Chinese college students will be jobless, and now we read that Indian college graduates suffer from higher jobless rates compared to high school graduates. China and India are not in the midst of an economic downturn, in fact the economy is booming in these two countries

When higher education harms
Source: Business Times, 18 Dec 2006

Graduates of lesser Indian universities cannot share the spoils of India's booming economy as they lack marketable skills

In the shadow of those marquee institutions, most of the 11 million students in the 18,000 Indian colleges and universities receive starkly inferior training, heavy on obeisance and light on marketable skills, students, educators and business leaders say. All but a tiny handful of graduates are considered employable by top global and local companies.
.........
A study that the group published last year concluded that just 10 per cent of Indian graduates with generalist degrees were considered employable by major companies, compared with 25 per cent of engineers.
.........
India is one of those rare countries where you become less able to find a job the more educated you get. College graduates suffer from higher jobless rates - 17 per cent in the 2001 census - than high school graduates. But even as graduates complain of the paucity of jobs, companies across India lament the lack of skilled talent at their disposal.

For years there's been reports of Indian grads not being able to find jobs and having to take up jobs as cabbies. And I remember that either TIMES or Newsweek reported that Chinese grads from vocational training institutes were more employable that college grads. Why is there this anomaly?

Why college grads are unemployable
Some of the reasons cited in the article include

• Lack of marketable skills


• Classroom culture that discourages analysis, debate, creativity

Skills like communication, presentation and writing are lacking in many grads, as half of all Indian college students are taught in languages other than English. 'Hinglish' (I guess it's something like Singlish?) is in widespread use. In addition, many do not have the experience of working in teams or leading them.

Also, a culture that discourages discussion, feedback and encourages rote-learning and subordination breeds a class of grads that are unable to provide creative solutions to problems.

Reflections on local universities

Students in local universities get lessons on business or technical writing, get to do presentations and form groups to do projects, so they do get to learn some soft skills I guess. As extra-curricula activities are mandatory up to secondary schools, most will have acquired some experience of working in groups. Also, for guys, NS does help a bit.

My own experience is that local students do not speak up, though most lecturers and tutors do encourage to do so, to the extent of awarding participation points in class. With the emergence of the seminar-style approach embraced by SMU, I guess more students will have learn to speak up.

1.24 million Chinese college students to graduate without jobs this year

Quoting the People's Daily Online,

About 1.24 million Chinese college students will graduate without jobs that require their qualifications this year, Tian Chengping, head of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, has warned.

A total of 4.13 million students graduated from higher education institutions this year, 750,000 more than last year, said Tian.

Tian said the government had set up a mechanism to provide guidance and training for unemployed graduates.

Only 22 percent of China's new jobs last year were for college graduates, according to a ministry study of 114 urban labor markets.

Contrast this with Singapore's job market for university grads in recent years, where in demand outstrips the supply. The job market for employees is expected to continue to be good in 2007.

I'll be interested to know what universities the bulk of these unemployed grads are from and what kind of degrees they are holding.

Thoughts on The Life Science Conundrum

The life sciences conundrum
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/147445.asp
After the hype, grads now realise that there's no place for them in the industry

According to the industry's annual reviews compiled by A*Star and the Economic Development Board's Biomedical Sciences Group (EDB BMSG), an average of a thousand new jobs were created annually for the past five years. Last year, there were 10,200 manufacturing jobs in the industry, almost doubling the 5,700 jobs created in the then-fledgling sector in 2001. By 2015, EDB targets the number of such jobs to hit 15,000.
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But the booming figures mask a Catch-22 situation: The current shortage of PhD holders in the biomedical sciences cluster is hampering Singapore's bid to attract multinational companies to move their high-end research projects here. Without a PhD, most of Singapore's life sciences graduates are only qualified to work as research assistants.
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And both graduates and diploma holders vie for these positions that could pay less than $2,000 a month. In the industry's manufacturing sector, life sciences graduates compete against their peers from other general sciences and engineering disciplines. They face even stiffer competition in the sales sector, where paper qualifications take on less significance.
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A*Star's Biomedical Research Council oversees and coordinates public sector biomedical research and development activities. On the surplus of life sciences graduates, its executive director Dr Beh Swan Gin told Today: "It is not a situation that can be easily communicated, as there are many factors involved. Simply put, a PhD is essential for progress as a researcher. And there are still not enough Singaporeans pursuing PhD studies."
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Adding that the local universities should not pander to the students' demand for the subject, Dr Beh said: "The job market of today and tomorrow, is the market the universities should focus on. The manufacturing and commercial jobs have always been there, albeit there are more of these now. NUS (National University of Singapore) and NTU (Nanyang Technological University) should get better data on the demand for life science graduates at the Bachelor's degree level

I'm not sure what exactly what to make of it, but it strikes me as somewhat ironic that PM Lee made this statement yesterday.

"It was a leap of faith into the unknown when we took the infocomm plunge in 1981. The lesson from the last 25 years is that we must continue to track closely the changes around us and respond promptly when opportunities emerge. By the time a trend becomes obvious to everyone, we may have already missed the train."

Yes there is some truth in that, the beginner's advantage of leading the pack is important, but we should also consider that making statements like that will make people anxious and jump on to the train headed for "The Next Big Thing". Something which happened some years ago with all the hype surrounding life sciences. Should we fault the government for promoting the life sciences?

I think at some level, it is only fair that the government let the people know that it is planning to grow the life sciences industry. There needs to be a sizeable pool of suitably educated grads if we are to become a biomedical hub. If jobs are going to be created in the industry, I would think it is only fair to let Singaporeans know of such an opportunity. We know that the market conditions do change, but in Singapore the government still has a large say in the economic developments, rather than say that they should adopt a hands-off approach, by not telling Singaporeans what areas they intend to develop, I'll rather that they disclose their plans in full detail so that people can make an informed choice.

Perhaps the situation is complex and there are many factors that come into play. If more information is shared between the government and the local universities and media, students may have more knowledge on which to base their decisions. When did the government realise that investors are not coming in due to the lack of PhD holders? When did they realise that they are not attracting these people in sufficient numbers? When did the universities realise that the enrollment for life sciences was too high? How were the job prospects for life science grads communicated to them? Did they know that having a BSc is not enough and a PhD is required? How were these pieces of info shared and communicated between the government, universities and the media?

If the government and the universities think something is wrong, they perhaps they should make a strong statement in the press to quell these false perspectives (I can only remember Phillip Yeo's test tube washing statement, which I think was hardly enough as it in itself was controversial, how you put a point across is sometimes as important as what the point is). Yes, ultimately it is a personal decision, but these decisions should be made under conditions where known information is made readily available the students. The constant ramming of the life science hype down our throats, I don't think that's it.

Barriers of entry to legal profession lowered

It's been in the news, for the last few years, that the number of lawyers in Singapore is in a gradual but steady decline. The attrition rate is high and the supply is not sufficient given the rising demand here. So the government has accepted the key recommendations of The Third Committee on the Supply of Lawyers, but that understandably has raised some concerns in some circles. The legal profession is still very much protected, as compared to say IT, accouting or engineering, so the introduction of (potential global) competition is perhaps a little too much to digest at one go. But perhaps it is not as sudden as one would have imagined. The signing of various FTAs already signalled that the barriers of entry for some professions were being lowered as Singapore began to recognize their qualifications. These professions included medicine and law.

The issue of falling pay is a concern, but it might not be all bad. As Mr Wang observes, the high salary is offset by the long working hours, which led to a high attrition rate. We all know the law of dimishing returns, up to a point the additional income does not offer you any more utility and you'll rather take a break instead. With the rising supply of lawyers, it is more probable that a work-life balance can be achieved. Besides, the aim of making Singapore a international legal services hub means that the fat in the system must be trimmed so that we can be globally competitive, and the first step is to allow global competition into the local arena.

MOM’s Report on Wages in Singapore, 2005

MOM's Report on Wages in Singapore 2005

The above link is broken.......use this one instead...

This is an extremely interesting report from the MOM. If you're interested in how much the grad from NUS EEE earns on average or how much a bellboy earns or what is the average differential in earnings between males and females for the same position, this report will shed some light.

I have yet to study the report in detail (not sure if I want to), but here are some observations from the report.

Diploma holders who graduate and then go on to serve NS earn more

They earn more than than their counterparts who do not have NS liability or served their NS before going on to study. I would have thought those who enter the workforce immediately after graduating would have earned more. They still earn less than degree holders though, by what I think is not a small margin.

Income bracket grouping for CPF contributors

All earnings refer to monthly wage.
About 14.2% of them earn $5000 and above.
About 29.2% of them earn $1499 and below.
The largest group (for intervals of $1000 in monthly wage) stands at about 22.8% for those earning $2000-$2999.

Wage differentials between the sexes

I gave it a quick look and found that most of the time, men do earn more than women.

For managers, the guy gets about $1000 more each month for basic and gross compared to the gal.
For professionals, the guy gets about $400 more each each month for basic and gross compared to the gal.

Information technology positions were among the lowest earning group among professionals.
Quoting the report "Highlights on Occupational Wages, 2005":

Occupying the lower five positions were mainly information technology related occupations, namely systems designers & analysts ($2,200); software engineers ($1,711) and applications programmers ($1,700). This reflects the strong competition of programmers from low-cost countries.

Not very surprising huh? From what I know, degree holders still have a better cut of the deal, as in most of them will still earn above $2.2K. Asking around, diploma holders are a lot worse off, I have heard of them being paid from $1.4K to $1.6K. This also ties in with my observation that there are many PRCs, Indian nationals, Indonesians and Vietnamese working in IT locally because the barriers to entry for the IT profession in Singapore is much lower than say, medicine, law, engineering or teaching, and the strong Singapore dollar.

The situation is more complex than that since wages are rising in India and PRC, in addition to other costs brought about by the high turnover rate. Moreover, mutual recogntion agreements that accompany FTAs will lower the barrier to entry to various professions including doctors and accountants. What we may see could be stronger competition in professions other than IT in a few years time.

Other interesting information

The report is really full of interesting tidbits, like what is the average commencing salary of fresh grads from each course in the local universities. One of the more interesting tables is the one titled "Median Monthly Basic and Gross Wages of Selected Occupations by Age in All Industries". If you believe in benchmarking yourself against others from the same job and age group, this one could give you a sense of bearings.

If you are interested in salary guides, here's another one from Kelly Services, but I don't think it'll be as accurate as MOM's but it's a guide.