Newly appointed National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan was quoted yesterday:
“We thought (taking foreigners in) was important to bring wages to people’s pockets, so that we can grow as fast as we can… (and) catch up with other countries. But now, we get the message that ‘we don’t want so much growth, that we are prepared to accept slower growth’”
The hard truth is ordinary Singaporeans are arguably not better off than before the immigration floodgates were opened.
Where is the empirical evidence that local wages, adjusted for inflation, have gone up substantially?
What is the official employment or unemployment rate of Singaporeans (not PRs)?
Are these jobs that were created "good" jobs?
According to the World Bank, Singapore's GDP per capita in 2009 was S$51,152, one of the highest in Asia.
However, using data from the Department of Statistics, you can roughly derive the median personal income is S$2,500 or S$30,000 annual.
The Reform Party's Kenneth Jeyaretnam, an economist by training, argued that as much as 45% of our GDP goes to foreigners.
So it is obvious that all this immigration-led GDP growth did not benefit Singaporeans as much as PAP through state media will claim.
Consequently, if the fallacy of foreigners bringing wages to people's pockets is exposed, then the PAP must stop importing them immediately.
In fact, their numbers must be reduced so as to ensure that the fruit of the country's growth is more equitably shared among Singaporeans, not foreigners, even if it means slower growth.
SAF scholar and National Solidarity Party's Tony Tan rightly suggested in his Choa Chu Kang GRC rally that the government should also be measured by other key performance indicators such as wage growth.
You can watch his speech here:
