Singapore’s tendency to rely on the continual acceptance of cheap foreign labour has made it a “one-trick pony”, said Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) director Corinna Lim.
Speaking as a panellist at a forum on the country’s population issues on Saturday afternoon, Lim noted that its excessive dependence on foreign workers over the years is a short-term one that needs to end sooner or later, and that there are other ways to promote economic growth that we somehow stopped working on.
“The problem with Singapore is that suddenly, we became a one-trick pony,” she said, addressing about 50 members of the public in attendance at the forum organised by Transitioning, an unemployment volunteer NGO. “Our one trick was bring in more cheap foreign labour; we will increase GDP every year. And that is true, but it’s not the only trick in the book — (yet) it became so convenient for us that we used it all the time.” Full story
