Trends
'High tech' laggards
If most around you are trained for a high-skill economy and you're not, what can you do? By Seah Chiang Nee
Jun 21, 2004

WHEN her kitchen tap leaked, a housewife phoned for a plumber who charged S$250 to fix it but after he left, the problem persisted.

She called another repairman who charged her S$60 for the job, and then lodged a complaint with the consumer movement to recover the fee from the first plumber.

Her anger turned to fear when the man turned up to threaten her with harm unless she withdrew the report.

Hers is among a rising number of complaints against plumbers - as well as sub-contractors, house renovators, furniture movers, carpenters and electricians and other self-employed workers.

They ranged from overcharging and poor quality work to a few cases of threats and violence against customers.

These frequent complaints of poor service are a sharp divergence from Singapore's image as an advanced, efficient city. Recent ones include:

* On the phone, the "professional" movers quoted a customer S$70 for moving his furniture but when they arrived, they charged a different fee - S$450.

* A commission earner promised homeowners "cheap, professional" electricians, painters and various sub-contractors but refused (or reduced) payment to them on the pretext that their work was shoddy. If they became too persistent, he would switch off his mobile phone.

* A renovator kept putting off the return of a customer's S$3,000 deposit after work was completed - and eventually wrote him a bounced cheque.

These tales show up how some people, without a basic education or minimum skill, are coping in Singapore's technological revolution and rapid affluence.

While the economy is embracing globalisation and a higher level of technology, older citizens who lack the basic know-how are finding themselves sidelined.

Two out of three workers entering the market have either a degree or a diploma, with the rest possessing a technical certificate or some formal training. Last year, for example, some 80% of the 2,500 fresh civil service recruits were university graduates.

For those on the other end of the scale, life is getting tougher.

The authorities help by providing retraining and skill upgrading courses but, relative to the numbers, the response is poor. As a result, many find themselves unable to cope with the new demand.

In a way, they resemble America's urban illiterates or rural poor who were bypassed by the country's roaring 90s economy and now set back further by the IT revolution.

In Singapore, this group remains sizeable. About a third of the workforce does not even have a secondary school certificate.

Those who shun retraining have become unemployable; they have a poor knowledge of English, Maths or simple computer functions. As a result, they are disadvantaged in almost every economic activity because of the relentless changes.

Even jobs they could traditionally rely on in the past - such as taxi drivers, hawkers and shopkeepers - have been invaded by younger men with fresher ideas.

With the help of cheap foreign labour, these sidelined Singaporeans have been turning to one-man or small low-skill enterprises including renovation or sub-contracting work like house-painting, tile or brick-laying, piling and road-digging.

Others repair household appliances, operate hawker stalls or small shops, work as security guards or go into the transport business. A few are middlemen earning commissions.

There should be no relation between low skill and ethics. By itself, insufficient education does not automatically mean bad service.

Not everyone over-charges or lacks professionalism, let alone cheats. In fact, the majority do a useful service, but theirs is an environment that ranks skills and ethics low in priority.

Business is short term and very competitive; customers are demanding and bankruptcies are frequent. The objective is to earn as much as possible and move quickly to the next project.

Cultivating a long-term reputation is important only to the large listed companies that are well financed and properly managed. The smaller fish operates on a day-to-day "here today, gone tomorrow" attitude.

Already accused of being a "nanny", the government is wary about moving in to control things with more regulations. Besides, too much official interference may stifle these people's livelihood, it is feared.

So it is relying on education and persuasion to resolve the problem.

Singapore is in transition. The old manufacture-dominated economy is making way for a new one that rewards ideas and high-tech services.

As in such historical changes elsewhere, this one is throwing up a group of what some in the West impolitely call "high-tech misfits".

Some advanced European countries, Japan and, to a lesser degree, the United States, make taxpayers solve the problem by putting the unemployed on the dole.

Singapore does it differently. It gives them an allowance to attend retraining and connects them with prospective employers.

At any rate, the government has a series of discounts, rebates and a higher top-up of retirement savings for the aged and the needy. As education expands, the proportion of lower skilled drops but it will never completely disappear.

It has, however, pushed some of them to settle down in lower-demanding countries.

Some of the older, low-tech citizens who can't fit into the new Singapore are steadily pulling up roots to retire in countries like China, India, Malaysia and Thailand.

They cash in their Housing Board flats and take out their Central Provident Fund savings to use as resettlement capital abroad.

China is attracting some Chinese-educated or dialect-speaking Singaporean retirees. They appear unfazed by the fact that it is a communist society.

Some Malays are making their way to Malaysia and Indians to India. One taxi driver told me why he was moving to Haadyai, Thailand, to open a video shop. "Living there is cheap for people like us."

They seem to share some common features. They are in their 50s or older and lack the skills to fit into modern Singapore (so a lower income doesn't stop them) and they are not followed by their children.

The younger ones keep their citizenship, just in case things don't work out. Most of them give a standard reply: "Earning a living in Singapore is hard."

The taxi driver said he could not afford to retire here. "When you have money coming in, it's okay. But if no money comes in, it's very tough."

(This article was published in The Sunday Star, Malaysia, on June 20, 2004)