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3. Where is the immigration slowdown and where are the jobs?
The white paper and DPM Teo’s speech talk of slowdown in immigration. Let us look at this in two scenarios. • Upto 2020: The government’s projections show an increase of around 250,000 in foreigners and around 20,000 PRs. In addition, the increase in citizens of around 200,000-300,000 is almost entirely coming from foreigners (PRs becoming citizens) since the chart of citizen population size in both the white paper and DPM’s presentation is at best flat till 2020. That makes around 520,000 foreigners in 8 years or around 65,000 new foreigners a year.
While this may be lower than what we saw in recent years (estimated around 100,000 in 2012), it doesn’t seem big enough due to the currently crippled infrastructure and unaffordable (to most) cost of housing and cars. • 2020-2030: Based on government projections, there would be about 600,000-700,000 new foreigners, 50,000 PRs and about 100,000-300,000 new citizens (again all coming from PRs). That is about 900,000 new foreigners on average or about 90,000 per year, not very different from what we have seen in the past few years.
A few issues the above raises are: 1. If we have immigration of 100,000 per year, it needs to create about 37,500 jobs a year (assuming on average 1.5 in a household of 4 look to work). Where will these jobs come from? This is critical because DPM has also said that the government will target to slowdown workforce growth to 1% to 2% in future from 3.3% historically. Will the jobs therefore created be enough to absorb the flow of immigrants? Or will they displace citizens? Will this lead to increased unemployment? All unanswered questions. The government’s assertions that foreign workers leave in a downturn doesn’t cut ice. In 2009, when the GDP contracted, we still had an increase in population of almost 150,000 mostly driven by foreigners.
2. According to the white paper, the government estimates growth to be 2%-3% between 2020 and 2030, down from 3%-4% between now and 2020(note that these are already higher than what economists consider are reasonable). Yet, the government’s population figures show higher immigration during years of slower growth. And yet, we are told our quality of life will improve. EVEN IF planned properly, is it even possible?
3. The white paper targets a constant pool of PRs. Why not target a constant pool of foreign workers? The aim of the foreigner pool should be to supply enough PRs per year. If say, we target 1 million foreigners, is this not enough to supply 20,000 PRs per year? If so, our population can be 3.5 million citizens, 0.5 million PRs and 1 million foreigners or a more sustainable 5 million.
The white paper and DPM Teo’s speech talk of slowdown in immigration. Let us look at this in two scenarios. • Upto 2020: The government’s projections show an increase of around 250,000 in foreigners and around 20,000 PRs. In addition, the increase in citizens of around 200,000-300,000 is almost entirely coming from foreigners (PRs becoming citizens) since the chart of citizen population size in both the white paper and DPM’s presentation is at best flat till 2020. That makes around 520,000 foreigners in 8 years or around 65,000 new foreigners a year.
While this may be lower than what we saw in recent years (estimated around 100,000 in 2012), it doesn’t seem big enough due to the currently crippled infrastructure and unaffordable (to most) cost of housing and cars. • 2020-2030: Based on government projections, there would be about 600,000-700,000 new foreigners, 50,000 PRs and about 100,000-300,000 new citizens (again all coming from PRs). That is about 900,000 new foreigners on average or about 90,000 per year, not very different from what we have seen in the past few years.
A few issues the above raises are: 1. If we have immigration of 100,000 per year, it needs to create about 37,500 jobs a year (assuming on average 1.5 in a household of 4 look to work). Where will these jobs come from? This is critical because DPM has also said that the government will target to slowdown workforce growth to 1% to 2% in future from 3.3% historically. Will the jobs therefore created be enough to absorb the flow of immigrants? Or will they displace citizens? Will this lead to increased unemployment? All unanswered questions. The government’s assertions that foreign workers leave in a downturn doesn’t cut ice. In 2009, when the GDP contracted, we still had an increase in population of almost 150,000 mostly driven by foreigners.
2. According to the white paper, the government estimates growth to be 2%-3% between 2020 and 2030, down from 3%-4% between now and 2020(note that these are already higher than what economists consider are reasonable). Yet, the government’s population figures show higher immigration during years of slower growth. And yet, we are told our quality of life will improve. EVEN IF planned properly, is it even possible?
3. The white paper targets a constant pool of PRs. Why not target a constant pool of foreign workers? The aim of the foreigner pool should be to supply enough PRs per year. If say, we target 1 million foreigners, is this not enough to supply 20,000 PRs per year? If so, our population can be 3.5 million citizens, 0.5 million PRs and 1 million foreigners or a more sustainable 5 million.
