When we say "foreign talent", we usually refer to foreigners holding Masters or PhD degrees. However, there is a misconception within Singaporeans that most, or all, of the foreigners in Singapore are within the foreign talent catagory. It is because of this that most of the friction that result in Singaporeans thinking that 'foreign talents' are stealing our jobs are related to the foreigners holding normal degrees or those with lower education.

Surprisingly, surveys have shown that Singaporeans do not resent those foreign talent who hold PhDs or Masters to take up high-ranking or specialised positions, as they possess special abilities that are hard to find in Singapore. It is when they go to the office and see colleagues from abroad with professional visit passes doing ordinary work like they themselves are doing that they start to ask: "What foreign talent? They're no better than us!"

This stereotyping that a lot of Singaporeans do is partly due to the government's policy. This policy is mainly to attract foreigners to Singapore, and is called the foreign talent policy. However, this policy aims at attracting two basic categories of foreigners. It also covers, of course, a transient low-skilled workers like maids and construction labourers, who have to leave after a period of time.

Singaporeans are mostly ignorant on this fact, and hence, misunderstandings start to arise.

However, despite this misunderstanding, I cannot deny that foreign talents _are_ taking up some of the jobs that Singaporeans are able to take up too. This is mainly due to the low labour cost, and (probably) higher qualifications that these foreign talents possess.

These qualities attract employers to hire foreign talent rather than Singaporeans. Employers are more likely to take into consideration labour cost rather than nationality when hiring an employee, and this puts Singaporeans in a serious disadvantage.

To summarise, I feel that while foreign talent is definitely needed in Singapore due to the lack of Singaporeans with specialised skills, within the foreign talent community, there are also some people who hold positions that Singaporeans are able to as well. They are the ones that vie with Singaporeans in getting better jobs.

These Singaporeans who have failed in getting these specialised jobs, will have to search for jobs with lower positions, and even at these lower positions, they are not definitely able to get the job as there are many other people with lower qualifications who posses skills enough for the job scope and are willing to accept a pay much lower than what these more educated Singaporeans are asking for.

In conclusion, I feel that while foreign talent is a threat to some Singaporeans, they are not to a majority of them.



-Angeline