Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Can't See How This Can Fail

It took a disappointing General Election for them to realize it, but it seems the Singapore government has finally decided to act on a long-standing complaint from normal Singaporeans. That is the number of foreigners working in Singapore.

Or at least it looked that way on the surface. Minister of State for Manpower Tan Chuan-Jin announced that the government will have new guidelines preventing discriminatory practices against Singaporeans. These guidelines will include things such as job advertisements indicating that foreigners are preferred, the preferential hiring of foreigners over suitable Singaporeans and preventing companies having an over-reliance on foreigners.

However I say it only looks that way on the surface because the government has refused to put the matter into law! Mr. Tan say that employers’ mindsets must be changed to tackle the problem, so this is something that must be done through “moral persuasion”.

“Moral Persuasion” in Singapore? Right, that is an excellent idea which will work. There’s no way such an idea will fail. In fact, let’s take away all the traffic fines in Singapore and “morally persuade” drivers in Singapore to follow all the traffic rules in the country.

Yes! I can’t see how that can fail.

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