The problem may not be entirely on the worker. The problem could be the economic structure. We have to constantly review and change the structure as we move from developing country status to developed country status. We have to go up on the value and knowledge based chain in our economic structure. Singapore is a small country. We cannot compete on labor intensive type of industry as compared to Indonesia, Thailand and China. The economy got to change in order for us to be productive.
As a country, we cannot be doing the same thing as what we did 20 years ago or even 10 years ago. Low end manufacturing will migrate to low labor cost countries. The govt must plan ahead in preparing our people for the next wave of economic change. In our schools, institutions and other schools of learning, we must get people to be trained and retrained on new skills in areas that are needed. We have to inculcate the life-long learning in our people to be productive in our work.
No point stating the obvious : Wages will fall if productivity falls. The govt must continually evolve the environment and economic structure and communicate this clearly to the people. Our part is that we must continue to change and upgrade our skills and be relevant to the new economic structure.
