SINGAPORE — An article by business weekly The Edge Singapore stating that only "...41.6 per cent of degree holders between the ages of 20 and 29" were employed in Singapore has prompted two government ministries to issue a clarification on the inaccuracies published.
In a joint clarification sent to several news outlets on Friday (July 5), the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Ministry of Education (MOE) said that both the print and online versions of the article had “quoted MOM’s employment statistics out of context and contained inaccuracies” about youth and graduate unemployment.
In the original print article titled Young, Educated and Jobless published on June 28, it was written that “in 2018, 149.4 residents out of 359.4, or 41.6 per cent of degree holders between the ages of 20 and 29 were employed”.
The article went on to say that this translated into “roughly 58 per cent” of university graduates who were unemployed.
In its clarification, the ministries said that these statements were wrong, explaining that the “41.6 per cent”referred to the proportion of employed residents aged between 20 and 29 who were degree-holders, and not the employment rate.
The ministries also said that MOM’s first-quarter labour market report this year — which was cited by The Edge Singapore — had stated that 84.4 per cent of resident degree-holders aged between 20 and 29 were employed last year.
“As for the remainder, a significant proportion are economically inactive,” they said, adding that the unemployment rate of resident degree-holders in this age group was 7.3 per cent for June last year.
“Like most countries, youth unemployment rate in Singapore is also higher than the overall unemployment rate, because of higher job search activities of the young.”
INCORRECT RATIO
In the same article, The Edge Singapore also wrote that “the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons is 1:1:08, indicating that there are more job seekers than positions available”.
The ministries pointed out that in the same MOM labour market report, the ratio was 1.08:1, meaning there are more positions available than jobseekers.
MOE and MOM said that they had asked The Edge Singapore to correct the errors on July 3 for the print edition and that the clarification has been carried in full in this week’s edition of the publication.
Full story at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/business-edge-singapore-called-out-mom-moe-inaccurate-data-jobless-graduates
Two words as usual: FUCK PAP.
Why do Our NTU/NUS graduates end up driving Uber/Grab?
The government likes to proudly show off the rankings of our schools, in particular that of NUS and NTU. Of course, it serves to demonstrate everyone should aspire to secure degrees from these schools so as to ensure they get good jobs et cetera.
Recently, I attended a Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licence (PDVL) training; here's a shocking fact I discovered when my curious self went around surveying for a bit - many of the folks attending the classes were ex-PMETs from polytechnics, NTU and NUS! A lot of them previously were in computer science, electrical and civil engineering jobs before being replaced. I counted a handful of them in their 30s and while most were in their 40s. There were also some fresh graduates who could not land jobs yet and so resorted to driving to earn a living. Dear lord! You mean to say our graduates from these top schools in Asia couldn't find proper employment?! One of the common reasons supplied was that too many foreigners were plying the same trade as them and at considerably lower salaries. In other words, a huge quantity of electrical engineering jobs going instead to Indians FTs and civil engineering jobs snagged by Filipinos.
The clowns at the top echelons of our G are always boasting about the country attaining GDP growth, oh come on even the dumb would know GDP growth can be achieved by importing vast quantities of foreign labour. Ooooh yes that means millions of foreigners, and here's a fun fact: our population is supposed to only hit 7 million by 2030 yet we are already nearing the 6 million mark, mind you this is only 2018. The doors are thrown wide open to the rest of the world, in the process causing so many locals to become underemployed or unemployed. While the government constantly publishes reports about how awesome the Singapore education system is, they prefer to go around hiring cheap labour with dubious academic credentials from third world countries.
Many of our locals live in HDB dwellings and are thus saddled with enormous housing loans; without jobs to fund their debts and living expenses , they are left with little choice but to force themselves to become private hire car drivers. When autonomous vehicles finally arrive at the scene in a big way, what then next? Take an elevator to the tallest floor of Marina Bay Sands Hotel tower and contemplate "migrating" to the netherworld?
More at https://www.domainofexperts.com/2018/01/why-do-our-ntunus-graduates-end-up.html
Still it doesn't detract from the fact that an increasing number of university graduates have resorted to becoming private hire drivers because our nincompoop government can't help them find gainful employment.