Redefining success in Singapore

By Candy Choo

“Dirty job” or “low class”? These are not terms that many would use to describe a firefighter or a police officer.

Embarrassingly, a recent comment on the NTU Confessions Facebook page shows how some Singaporeans still believe in class distinctions between different lines of work.

The student who posted this comment was looking for advice on the anonymous confessions page. She said her parents looked down on her boyfriend’s choice to serve full-time in the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF). She referred to it as a “dirty hands job” and “low class”.

Netizens were quick to respond — harshly — against this anonymous user. Some questioned her “backward thinking”, while others advised her to leave her boyfriend “for his own good”.

Initially, I was skeptical about the authenticity of this post. After all, the drama could have been made up. Regardless, I was heartened by the sheer number of netizens expressing their disdain for this classist behavior.

A follow-up post on NTU Confessions by the boyfriend said he has since broken up with this “pampered princess”. The post was subsequently showered with support and encouragement in the comments section.

To begin to understand the roots of such discriminatory rhetoric in the first place, we need to first take a step back and look at the value of a university degree in Singapore through the years.   

Having a university education was not common back in the ’80s and ’90s.

Then, not many could afford tertiary education and they often joined the workforce as soon as they could, to contribute to their families’ incomes. Only the lucky few who could attend university were able to enjoy considerably better prospects when seeking jobs.

A university education was thus seen as the gateway to higher standards of living.

But as more people aimed for a university degree, employers began increasing the education requirements for their employees. With a large pool of university graduates to choose from, a degree holder was favoured as employers saw them as better quality hires.

This demand for higher qualifications has encouraged an aspiration for higher education. In turn, this cycle has perpetuated the paper chase in Singapore. With most white-collar jobs having a degree requirement, this is not surprising.  

To feed the demand for university education, the government plans to provide enough places at public universities for 40 per cent of the cohort by 2020, up from 35 per cent this year.

To accomplish this, the government has recently restructured private institution SIM University  (UniSIM) to become the sixth public university, the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

For those hell-bent on getting a degree but did not make it to a public university, they have 37 other private institutions to choose from, such as Kaplan and PSB Academy.

Certainly, we have too many graduates.

According to the 2017 Graduate Employment Survey (GES), a total of 15,562 students graduated from five of our six public universities last year.

The GES was jointly conducted by the five universities, together with the Ministry of Education. It compiled employment rates among recent graduates, as well as their starting salaries.

Yet, only 80.2 per cent of these graduates landed permanent full-time jobs within six months of graduation. This is the lowest rate since the GES started in 2012. It is even more difficult for graduates of private schools, as only 58 per cent found full-time jobs within six months.

Given the statistics, joining the SCDF is actually a wise choice — keeping the country safe is a service that will always be in demand, and degree holders earn $3,450 to $4,550 as a Lieutenant.

Now, compare that to the median starting salary of graduates from the three public universities — the National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Management University (SMU) and NTU — which stands at $3,360 last year.

GRAPHIC: DIANE LIM

Our society seems to place more value on white-collar jobs rather than blue-collar ones, especially when the former is believed to pay better and allow one to work in relative comfort.

It is a different picture in Australia, which prides itself as a country of working class people.

When announcing her government’s $1b plan to boost local industries, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard hoped that Australia will stay a manufacturing nation with highly skilled blue-collar workers who are paid well.

Top jobs are in the mining industry, where one can make A$2,102 (S$2,232) a week. In contrast, finance-related jobs at the same skill level only bring in A$1,071 a week.

But there is no such incentive for young Singaporeans to get their hands dirty. With Bangladeshi labourers getting $1,000 a month, employers will be less inclined to hire Singapore residents instead.

What I hope Singaporeans understand is that desk-bound jobs may not be suitable for everyone.

Last year, The Straits Times featured Ms Suguna Tambusamy, who left her accounting job to fulfil her childhood dream of becoming a nurse at 44. Previously, her mother disapproved of the nursing profession, calling it a “dirty job” as well, because it involved washing the bodies of others.

Ms Suguna’s mother wanted her to have a “proper office job”. After a series of ailments that required hospital visits, her mother had a change of heart and gave Ms Suguna her blessing to make the career switch. Ms Suguna was glad to leave her desk-bound job as she had found accounting stressful.

I also chanced upon a forum thread on Salary.sg started by a professional in the information technology industry in 2014. He was looking for advice on switching to a high-paying blue-collar job in Singapore because he was tired of his office job that worked him for long hours and made him too drained to go out on the weekends.

This post reflects a common grievance among white-collar workers.

Junior lawyers and accountants in Singapore, for instance, are already experiencing the burnout.

The Straits Times reported in early September that many have left these professions after a few years, due to long working hours and heavy workloads.

In America, a high-powered Silicon Valley attorney died in July 2015 from a bacterial infection related to his drug consumption. His ex-wife investigated and found a startling trend of drug abuse among lawyers.

Evidently, white-collar jobs have their downsides as well.

To become a happier people, perhaps we should stop measuring success by the nature of our jobs. Instead, it is time we establish our own yardsticks for success based on our own satisfaction with our work.  

I remember a talk during my junior college years, where a teacher spoke about his “previous life” working for a multinational corporation.

Travelling was a big part of his job but even then, he was always confined to the meeting rooms in the foreign countries he was in. He was not happy at all.

After a few years, he decided to become a teacher as he found it to be more fulfilling. It also allowed him more time with his family.

If we picked careers based on how big the paycheck was, we might never be truly happy. There will always be more money to earn, a bigger promotion to chase.

Instead, we could all learn to be more content with what we have by striving for balance instead of excellence. Perhaps then we wouldn’t be so stressed out looking for the next best job.

As Confucius famously said: “Choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life.”