by Leong Sze Hian
I refer to the Census of Populaton 2010 – Statistical Release 3, released on 24 February.
Long work hours
What I find rather surprising is that 228,856 worked between 50 – 54 hours, 73,761 between 55 – 59 hours, 134,716 between 60 –64 hours, and 142,551 65 hours and over.
This mean that 579,884 persons worked at least 50 hours, which is about 31 per cent of all workers.
Why is it that so many people work for such long hours?
Elderly long hours low pay
Another startling statistic is that 4,709 age 65 and above worked 65 hours and over, 2,609 worked 60 – 64 hours, 1,931 worked 55 – 59 hours, and 3,553 worked 50 – 54 hours.
Why is it that so many elderly persons are working such long hours?
For Gross Monthly Income from work below $500, $500 – 999 and $1,000 – 1,499, there were 63,864, 163,064 and 191,315 persons, respectively.
This means that 226,928 persons earned less than $1,000, or about 12 per cent of all resident working persons.
In other words, about 1 in 8 persons earned less than $1,000.
Another startling statistic is that 4,023 persons worked 40 – 44 hours, 1,688 worked 45 –49 hours, 1,329 worked 50 – 54 hours, 849 worked 55 – 59 hours, 1,095 worked 60 – 64 hours, and 2,289 worked 65 hours & over – all of these people for less than $500!
Surely these statistics indicate perhaps that we should review the decision not to have a minimum wage.
Home ownership dropped
Home ownership has dropped from 92 to 87.2 per cent, from 2000 to 2010.
In 2000, about 73,000 households were not owners, and in 2010 there were about 147,000 of such non-ownership households.
Is this an indication of the affordability of HDB flats?
Median household income
The Median Household Income from Work of Chinese, Malays, Indians and others, grew by 6.6, 3.6, 4.6 and 4.3 per cent per annum, respectively, from 2000 to 2010.
The median income from work for Chinese, Malays, Indians and Others, was 5,100, 3,844, 5,370 and 7,432 respectively, in 2010.
Living in 1 & 2-room flats
The percentage of Households Living in 1 & 2-room HDB flats, declined for the Chinese, Indians and Others, from 4.4 to 4.1, 8.1 to 4.9 and 4.2 to 2.1 per cent respectively, from 2000 to 2010.
The exception were Malays who increased from 6.5 to 8.7 per cent.
Mode of transport
The Motorcycle/Scooter Only Resident Working Persons by Usual Mode of Transport to work was disproportionately high for Malays, at 13.1 per cent in 2010, compared to 2.4. 4.6 and 2.0, for Chinese, Indians and others, respectively.
The Population Density (per sq km) has increased from 5,900 persons per square kilometer in 2000 to 7,126 in 2010.
The Median Travelling Time was 50 minutes for those travelling by MRT & Public Bus Only.
This means that half of those who travelled by MRT & Public Bus Only, took more than 50 minutes, with 17 per cent taking more than 60 minutes.
The median travelling time to school was 45 minutes for polyclinic students and 50 minutes for university students.
This means that half of polytechnic and university students, took more than 45 and 50 minutes, respectively.
HDB households
There are 112,433 residents staying in 1 and 2-room HDB flats, and 632,538 in 3-room flats.
This means that about 24 per cent of those who stay in HDB flats are in 3-room or smaller flats.
Singles and widowed
There are 527,090 single males, 473,377 single females, 24,854 widowed males and 132,702 widowed females.
This works out to 32 per cent being single, and 5 per cent who are widowed.
Economically inactive
There are 44,292 and 39,380 unemployed males and females respectively, and 393,573 and 730,461 economically inactive males and females.
This means that about 36 per cent of the resident population are economically inactive.
Incomes
There are 226,928 resident working persons with gross monthly income from work below $1,000, 191,315 between $1,000 – $1,499, and 198,360 between $1,500 – $1,999.
So, there are a total of 418,243 persons or 22 per cent of the total of 1,898,042 residents, who earned less than $1,500.
Since the data excludes persons working at their place of residence, the number earning less than $1,500 may be higher.
There are 139,876 1-Person households, or about 12 per cent of total households, who stayed alone.
120,010 resident households had no working persons, 42,762 earned below $1,000 and 93,532 earned between $1,000 – $1,999.
This means that about 10 per cent of households had no working persons, 4 per cent earned below $1,000 and 8 per cent between $1,000 – $1,999.
102,383 resident working persons had usual hours worked below 30 hours, and 42,399 between 30 – 34 hours.
These persons would be defined as part-timers.
Finally, although the Economic Development Board (EDB) is doing a great job bringing increasing investments to Singapore practically every year, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has policies which undermine Singapore’s holistic economic development and social cohesion, resulting in more Singaporeans working longer hours for lesser pay.
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FIVE major supermarket chains here have pledged to keep prices stable for some of their house brand products for at least the next six months and FairPrice Singapore CEO Seah Kian Peng said that, as a social enterprise, it was committed to keeping prices of daily essential items affordable and stable.
Good say “ Social enterprise”. Why can’t the PAP do the same?
1) Built hawker center beside MRT station, to stable the food price increasing. Look at factory, they have their own canteen and they subsidy or free gas, water and maybe rental free so the staff and workers can have cheaper food to eat. We do not want another Kopitiam company running the market and food center at SengKang. Look at them now, high rental mean high food price. The price of food at SengKang and Punggol is high.
2) As a good government, you should allow hawker center to be built at the convenient location, run by the government at subsidy rates, from there you could stable the food price and you can create more local enterprise from there too. Look at No- Sign seafood, where are they born from? Hawker center!!!
great article.
this is the result of Cheaper Better Faster policy by PAP
World Class City, Worst class pay.
Highest paid leaders, lowest paid workers.
What the greatest shame of this Govt??
But what can the Poor folks do?
Smart ppl with good heart are not willing to sacrifice to step out to stand for election to oppose the greedy & oppressive PAP (even now the chances of being elected is at all time high)???
Where is humanity and human sanity at this age on earth??
This govt just refuse to accept reality.
They have lost touch with the people long ago. Older Singaporean are suffering. Think they only want Older Singaporean to be Cleaner and Dish washer. They keep holding back our CPF money when we cant even fulfil our immediate needs.
This article… so many words written, so little content.
The statistics do not look at all healthy and than we have PAP promising another good years ahead given such dismay result they have created over the last many years. We do not know how they can achieve 30% salary increase for Singaporeans and 1st rate city in the next 10 years given their fundamentally flawed leadership. Oops! I forgot election is around the corner, time to blow empty promises again, to buy vote or fix the opposition. Afterall, Singaporeans might vote PAP for further sufferings as if the last 5 years have not been painful enough for this nation.
not every old person can be like MM, so old and draw so high salary. Somemore only job is to talk cock, what a wonderful job to have when one get old. Furthermore got pension and free medicals.
life is not fair, and is caused by the papayas and its anti-citizen policies.
S’poreans earn so little = not productive!
to raise productivity, S’poreans must look at their income & compare their own income productivity against other 1st world nations.
work less, do less & earn more!! ^.^
Social enterprise like NTUC INCOME and Fairprice were set up as co-operatives and NEED NOT PAY TAX so that it can keep cost low.
But what happened?
Every single one has become profit maximising outfit–and yet do not pay tax.
That is why the papigs can park their dead-wood cronies in NTUC enterprices and yet do not affect their huge profits.
How many of these dead-wood are MPs from NTUC? 20 or more?
well, depending on what we aspire to be, the joke is, there are no cheap housing in Tokyo.
there is no shortage of ppl whom i met in Tokyo who thinks that they see no reason why the bottom xx% (depending who u talk to) of income earners should own a piece of property in such a magnificent city where every inch of land is literally gold.
they can live in the semi-rural outskirts of the city, or better still, go to Sapporo.
in that spirit, are there semi-rural outskirts in singapore? is it somewhere in Changi?
or somewhere out in the sea?
The biggest and long lasting domino effect to improve quality of life – PROPERTY PRICE – the biggest single committment of majority of singaporean
Most of us ultilised at least 25% of our income to sevice our housing loan.
Well we are already hurt and destined to work at least 40yrs to service this loan
Do you expect our children to go through the same stress level and poor living quality like us?????
The truth is that in this high-speed treadmill country like ours, only the top 10% of the society live their life to the fullest, the next 70% are simply here to facilitate and the bottom 20%…….live their life as “new-age slaves”
Therefore I will keep hubbing my view until the >75% of singaporean who own just 1 property get my message to unite and demand the followings:
1. DRASTICALLY INCREASE THE ANNUAL PROPERTY TAX FOR 2ND PROPERTY AND ABOVE
2. FOREIGNERS AND PRs CAN ONLY PURCHASE LIVE-IN PROPERTY, ie NO RENTAL OR SUB-LETTING ALLOWED
To all singaporean – 1st property is not be taken as an Investment but Necessity!
Our land is finite and fast diminishing we must discourage property as a form of investment in land-finite Singapore
If we don’t preserve this sacred cow the end results can be disastrous for our younger generations
Don’t be too happy if you are staying in a big posh house now, if you have more than one kid, good luck to them…they may need to fight over your property when you pass-on
I’m sincerely concerned about we singaporean going forward especially the younger generations…….how can our children ever live a good quality life if they have to be on this high-speed threadmill their entire life just to afford a roof over their head!
Other cities are just cities within a BIG country they can simply move outskirt, do you expect our children to squeeze or move outskirt to Malaysia or Indonesia????
Good luck fellow singaporean, it is your choice to decide on your children’s future
unimpressed 26 February 2011
This article… so many words written, so little content.
………………
which part of you is brainDEAD? you meant by writin a longwinded speech will get more voters to vote for pap? afterall the topic is bout longhour cheap labour of YOUR grandparents workin for peanuts…
I am flabbergasted how our elected ministers can still justitfy such humongous pay(apart from other unseen benefits)and yet can allow a growing number (about 20% of our people) who have to eke out an existence on incomes below the poverty line! Surely rational people cannot be fooled anymore and will surely show this in the coming GE despite gerrymandeering electoral boundary changes!
Look at the photo in this article again and again.It reveals the reality of our elderly in Singapore.I have seen plenty of them at hawker centres and foodcourts.Many work for long hours for meagre wages.So old,yet have to carry on slogging until they expire.This is our “First World”status.
But when LKY sees them working,he will say that it is good for them to continue labouring thus,otherwise they would shrivel,become sick and die faster.But LKY has no idea how long some of them need to slog,and how much they earn each day.
Ask LKY to work like this for a day,and he would be aching all over the next….
iSLAPunimpressedbackside, 26 February 2011
some people like lots of content but no meaning. abit like eating lots of junk food (content)! you know who are those content rich but poor in substance!!
know who are those who harp on quantity (of FTs), not quality?.. now you know why number of population’s relation GDP figures? cos quality no improvement, so bring in more FTs.
:D
@unimpressed
Another PAP bootlicker………
To unimpressed,
I was impressed with Mr Leong’s write-up.
Sorry, but I must hold back what I have in mind… Hope that you can sleep well.
“so many words written, so little content.”
Yes! That’s exactly my thoughts when I get to read the crap wayang speeches by MPs in Paliament! And I really feel like iSLPAPunimpressedbackside!
If only there were more Siew Kum Hong’s in Parliament… His speeches were cogent and incise, pointing out the flaws in the government’s policies and the key issues to be addressed
Hahaha… PAP or anti-PAP is the only thing that some people can think about. One-track mind.
Just like how this article uses a few numbers and unwarranted assertions to advance the writer’s opinion.
thanks for the report, something u can’t find in our local newspaper.
Mr Leong,
How many worker you are employing and how much are they getting?
Is so easy to put the blame on the Govt and if they think they are not getting what is worth than simply resign and be your own boss. Do you really think that if we change the Govt we won’t have this problem?
I am unimpressed when one is only able to make a single unwarranted assertion with no numbers and supporting arguments.
PAP has failed to arrest the decline in wages and rein in costs of living. It has to do a study on the profitability and competitiveness of our businesses and industries.
MM Lee’s remarks on Never mind the Gini Coefficient is not very helpful advice. He should not try to play the role of an advisor if he cannot deliver solutions.
He is creating masses of subsistence workers. This is creating a very unhealthy and poor quality of life. His team of ministers have not been able to make crucial decisions to deliver higher quality of life results. It just shows that they are poor quality managers and leaders.
The numbers do not portray a healthy economy. It looks like the PAP govt. has built a house of cards.
80 percentile,
Agree. The PAP govt. is managing Singapore like an investment bank, e.g. Lehman Bros., i.e. take profits upfront (so that they could get fat bonuses) and pass all losses to the future.
Look at the way they’re selling Singapore away like there is no tomorrow.
ome ownership dropped
Home ownership has dropped from 92 to 87.2 per cent, from 2000 to 2010.
In 2000, about 73,000 households were not owners, and in 2010 there were about 147,000 of such non-ownership households.
Is this an indication of the affordability of HDB flats?
Our social structure is in deep shit. i am seeing lots of PRC teenagers around who look like they are here to enjoy themselves and fool around. why let them in our country so easily? why let them take up and use our resources for their many years of study in singapore. i know who to vote for my future.
With so many singporean earning pittance salary its time the government should peg the salary of president prime minister and ministers based on say 10 times that of these low wages salary instead of against top bankers and income kingpin. By this they would be constantly be reminded of the plight of poor workers who worked long hours yet can’t make ends meet.
the statistic i wanted is unfortunately not covered here,
thats the emigration numbers (ppl who are migrating from singapore to another country)
if we lose 2 good quality university graduates but gain 4 china prc mei mei hairdressers in the migration game,
this is considered a net loss or a net profit?
Singapore is competing to be the number 1 nation in Karoshi – sudden death from overwork and the working poor.
i WANT TO ask Mr. Leong.
Does he really think the govt gives a sh”t about the welfare of these people?
Tell him to look up bbc. there was a documentary about poor people in the uk.
The funny thing is the poor people live in a flat with at least 3 rooms.
they all look energetic.
Look at our poor people.
then you think our middle class is actually poor people in the uk
the contributions by the pro PAP camp in this forum are highly disappointing.
everytime I look at those old folks stammering their way while cleaning and clearing those utencils on the tables at food courts, I start cursing at the papies, don’t know why but its the deep hatred I get inside me that makes me to use that four letter words on those traitors.
Definitely very distressing numbers indeed. I am sure the Government did not highlight these numbers. I still feel that this tis the time for a minimum wage policy to be enacted quickly. It does not make us as less competitive. After all, didn’t the government already announced we should move up the manufacturing value chain? If so, then we should also allow higher valued workers get higher pay just like Ministers pay are pegged to GDP growth.
We should thank Mr. for analyzing the numbers and bringing to the attention of the people that beneath the shining facade of Singapore, all is not well.
The PAP ministers should stop deceiving themselves and the people, and stop painting a rosy picture to us and rewarding themselves with multi- million dollar salaries.
Decent jobs with decent pays! To substantiate the high remuneration that the world’s highest paid policy makers receive, I believe they must, at least, implement policies that enable all its citizens to find the above. Or is it a tool, the low wage policy, to intentionally subdue the latter? When one is living from hand to mouth, one presumably would not think about anything else except to work very hard to put food on the table, especially when there many mouth to feed. These, I think, citizens would be “held to ransom” then.
“FIVE major supermarket chains here have pledged to keep prices stable for some of their house brand products for at least the next six months and FairPrice Singapore CEO Seah Kian Peng said that, as a social enterprise, it was committed to keeping prices of daily essential items affordable and stable.
Good say “ Social enterprise”. Why can’t the PAP do the same?”
For your information. By the time the 6 months is up… the election is probably over. Do you think they will continue to maintain their low price for us folk?
Think again when you vote.
Almost all countries are the same, a small percentage of the elite wealthy group who fatten their pockets each passing year & reward themselves at the expense of taxpayers hard earn monies
while the large majority of low & middle income group continue to slog for a meagre reward at year end. Legally everyone knows this ain’t wrong but ethically everyone knows it ain’t right.
The problem is we are becoming a society
with no moral.
The best way to help all the poor, the old and the exploited here is to vote out the PAP or at least deny them a majority in Parliament. They are heartless traitors who betray and exploit the very people who have been and still are their staunchest supporters. Inspite of their suffering, it is very difficult to change the old and poor’s mindset of fierce loyalty to the PAP. And it will take a miracle for the PAP to have a change of heart from being greedy and exploitative to being just and compassionate. It is left to us to vote in a more humane Party who will govern for the good of the people. Even if this cannot be achieved in the coming election, more opposition MPs in Parliament will contain some of PAP’s excesses and force it to take care of the people more.
80 percentile, I fully agree wth your point on the housing as we Singaporean should take it as neccessity, not investment.
HDB flat is meant for us to stay, a place to rest after work. I rather have my value of my flat stayed at the level as 10, 15 years ago, rather than seeing more and more young couple needs to folk out so much money to make the monthly installment.
When the property market went hot, I observed many friends of mine were either thinking of selling their flats or selling their flat to so-called make profit. I cannot see the logic. Ultimately, they still need to purchase either new one or resale unit.
Keep the price stable will help to make sure our next generation and next next generation can have a real ‘affordable’ house, and not paying through one’s nose.
@80 percentile,
Totally agree with your post, a 5 rm in Sengkang is about £240,000(S$490000), I can buy a 4 room house in Romford or Dagenham which is about 20 Km away from London (freehold comes with garden, garage, 1 reception (living rm), a toilet at ground floor, kitchen, master bedroom with a bathroom and 3 bed rooms).
@FPC,
The basic needs of the poor in UK are being taken care of unlike Singapore; however, I am quite upset by some of them who abuse the system. Still, this does not mean that UK should abolish this system because of a small group of people who take advantage of the system.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/index.htm
Click on link above you will see what UK is doing for their people.
At the end of the day, a multi parties system will work well for our society, hope this coming GE there is a change in Singapore political environment!
perhaps by having a high-speed hamster wheel system with all the natural limitations of Singapore,
there seems to be a high cost-low reward environment created, our policies might have caused us to attract the wrong kind of talent and lose our own talents at the same time.
when i say high cost, it means high cost for the residents by placing great demands on them, for example: very long working hours is a high cost.
by low reward i mean, the reward for the ‘cost’ paid by the citizen when compared to countries with similar quality of life.
if u put in the same effort, u can buy a landed house with garage in Australia but a 99year leasehold flat here, which is preferred?
if u r a high quality foreigner, where do u prefer to go?
if u went to UK first, would u downgrade your quality of life or be prepared to work harder than before for less reward here?
the best talents are often not unintelligent people, and are highly mobile, they go where the best deal is,
can we really attract real talents by offering them less for more effort?
my friends in Australia recently laughed at me for paying 100grand for a ‘stupid’ japanese car.
to add insult to injury, they told me not to take it so hard, for there’s a saying:
less is more.
really?
This article plucks so many figures from various sources and plugging it into the article with no concrete conclusions but rather making sweeping statements to infer. For example, it simply stated 36% of resident population as economically inactive, however, out of the 36%, majority might be pp not working out of choice example like homemakers,students, etc.
all thanks to the collaboration between govt and emplpoyers – the powerful and the rich – WORKERS all over the world and at our doorsteps are subject to much mannipulation by being cajoled to be ‘CHEAPER’ and ‘rights -less’ or be painfully UNEMPLOYED and IMPOVERISHED AND HUNGRY.
BLUE COLLAR OR WHITE COLLAR,workers are being made to ‘OUTBID’ each other with lottle or no respect from ‘greedy’ and manipulative employers.
many ‘OLDER’ workers of 45 years of age or slightly older are being ‘systematiclaly’ replaced with reason such as ‘COST-CUTTING’ as mere excuases form employers.
in banking and finance,many long-srving and talented emplpoyees and middle managers of even of LOCAL BANKS have recently been retrenched and replaced by so-called FTs like those india indians who first accept lower salaries and acted hmuble whilst trying to learn the basics of banking form our own local talents whom they betrayed for ‘favours’ form our employers.
how can we disregard our own talents in banking and finance for example and replace them with filipinos who have lesser experience and of lower standards?
many of our natives made jobless are still looking for gainful emplpyment while our govt and employers are hypocriticlaly complaining of ‘SHORT SUPPLY’ of labour for ‘expansion’ whilst unethiclaly replacing their existing aingaporean workers?
is tis the correct policy to adopt while,the govt is dealying withdrawals of CPF savings of our jobless workers and extending the reirement age to 65 while allowing emplpoyers,even govt-linked bank to retrench their singaporean workers just so to fill those vacated postions with indians and filipinos?
is our govt nad employers sending a message that our own local graduates with vast years of experience and expertise are of lower standards?
somethind is still very wrong despite and in spite fo the BUDGET SWEETENERS.
THE GOVT IS NOT FORTHCOMING IN HELPING TO GET OUR UNFAIRLY TREATED JOBLESS NATIVES RE-EMPLOYED.
THE POOR AND NEEDY ADN ELDERLY AND THE JOBLESS NEW POOR WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO NATION BUILDING ONE WAY OR ANOTHER DESERVE BETTER.
SINGAPOREANS need to wake up form their self-centredness in order to for them to send a RESOUNDING WAKE -UP CALL TO THE PAP GOVT.
I would to know where is our promised Swiss standard of living?
Young couples can’t even afford to buy a 3 room HDB flat or start a family as they have to wait at least 4 years for a flat.
The PAP is looking at the world with rose tinted glasses. More so during the GE period, trying to con us into believing everything is well as they have done well.
They forgot that the citizens are no fools, barring the NEW citizens the PAP has hastily created for their own support to stay in power and luxury of their mega salaries.