Commentary: Making every job a good job requires all hands on deck and a heart for skills
With Singapore growing in stature as a regional and international business hub, Singaporeans in professional, managerial or executive (PME) positions have been handsomely rewarded by the market.
In his speech at the Singapore Economic Forum last Tuesday (Oct 18), Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong highlighted the need for broad change in the economy.
He said it currently “places too much of a premium on cognitive abilities – what we deem as ‘head’ work – and does not value sufficiently those engaging in other forms of work, such as technical roles which tend to be more ‘hands-on’ work, or service and community care roles which tend to be more ‘heart’ work”.
Indeed, the starting pay of university graduates in full-time employment is about 1.5 times that of polytechnic graduates and 1.9 times that of ITE graduates, with these ratios declining only slightly over the past decade.
Disparities in wages across occupations are also larger in Singapore compared with other countries.
For instance, the average monthly earnings of professionals in Singapore were about 2.9 times those of service and sales staff in 2020, whereas this ratio was 2.4 in Thailand, 2.3 in the UK and 2.0 in Switzerland.
