26th of November 2011. Secretary general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Lim Swee Say, brought a message of hope for the hopeful at the YSA (Young Sikh Association) Ministerial dialogue session held at Suntec City.No, we are not going to have cheaper and better housing. He was referring to our economic philosophy, that Singapore will attain sustained growth through high skill, high innovation and high productivity; something that I can relate to. However, my e-thesaurus showed a different list of synonyms for the words skill, innovation and productivity. As to how he translated skill-innovation-productivity to cheaper-better-faster is a wonder.
I hung around long enough to hear his spiel about globalisation and localisation. I learned two new words from Swee Say and they are ‘glocalization’ and ‘corecalization.’ The audience seemed to be awestruck by how he could fuse two opposing forces of globalization and localization into a single force of glocalization to bring unprecedented growth for Singapore. In essence, it was down to the number of jobs created for locals versus foreigners.
Corecalization was even more aggressive. It was about whether the core Singaporean team manages to gain essential skills; it didn’t matter even if the rest of the workforce was made up of foreigners.
Swee Say asked the audience how many Singaporeans were experienced aircraft engineers with the talent and ability to manufacture aircraft engine blades. There was no response.
Like a good salesman he didn’t fuss over the disclaimer clause or what’s written in fine print. It was an important clause nonetheless, that many PMETs may become structurally unemployed in the future, the price we need to pay for induced economic growth. No worries for now though, for we can kick that can down the road or cross that bridge when we get to the river.
One thing is for sure, the existing growth policies will remain for a long time to come. We will continue to record stellar economic performances in the years ahead, which is a good thing. The current economic malaise is just a speed bump. There is hope, or is there?
Either I worry too much, or they don’t see it coming. The question that was unanswered was how we are going to deal with the people in the fringes of the economy, the people who are going to lose their jobs and those who are left behind. Is there really any hope for the under-privileged and the marginalized, or should they just wallow in their hopelessness?
