Raise productivity to raise wages: PM Lee
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Originally posted by Nelstar:
My fortune teller say if I meet my lucky star (gui ren), good luck will befall on me.
He mention to donate more to increase probability of meeting gui ren.
My minister say, to battle rising costs of living, wages must increase.
Another minister say, productivity must increase to increase wages.
Why all these people talk so cheem?
Productivity?> the hsien tao loong increased hisher own salary without looking into the mirror heshe has not scored high or not scored at all where productivity is concerned.
So lenient on himherself and so tough on the nation who give himher the highest pay. Ungrateful scumbag
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Originally posted by winsomeea:
Productivity?> the hsien tao loong increased hisher own salary without looking into the mirror heshe has not scored high or not scored at all where productivity is concerned.
So lenient on himherself and so tough on the nation who give himher the highest pay. Ungrateful scumbag
GDP increase wor.
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Originally posted by Nelstar:
GDP increase wor.
Easy job! To continue to see positive figure for GDP growth just increase costs of living, inflation. Huat ah!
Times good or bad Papigs continue to HUAT ah!
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Originally posted by Aneslayer:
It just mean the rich - poor gap VERY wide.
Answer is on point 15
See http://app.mof.gov.sg/ - Speech by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister of State For Finance And Transport, At The NTU-IIC Singapore Financial Conference 2012，Date: 28 February 2012
Increased opportunities at lower end, since Singapore is 1st world, our Government will increase 3rd world countries' education. This will help them to become pt. 14. Highly skilled people.
As for those who do not believe, read pt 19.
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I am shamed... For 1 man 1 machine to 1 man 3 machines. 1 man with 1 head, 2 hands, 2 legs, 2 balls and 1 extra. Maybe I should learn how to make my extra more productivities. I am shamed... Maybe the talented can teach us..
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Originally posted by Nelstar:
My fortune teller say if I meet my lucky star (gui ren), good luck will befall on me.
He mention to donate more to increase probability of meeting gui ren.
My minister say, to battle rising costs of living, wages must increase.
Another minister say, productivity must increase to increase wages.
Why all these people talk so cheem?
Catch 22.
Its like saying,
You must believe, and you will get what you want.
You believe, but do not get what you want.
It means you did not truely believe.
You must truely believe. So its your fault. Not the theory.
You must raise productivity, for wage increase, you hear.
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why must raise productivity or raise wages???
why cannot raise wages to raise productivity???
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Originally posted by ^Acid^ aka s|aO^eH~:
why must raise productivity or raise wages???
why cannot raise wages to raise productivity???
Because you cannot meet gui ren yet.
Wyrd bið ful aræd
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Originally posted by Nelstar:
Answer is on point 15
Increased opportunities at lower end, since Singapore is 1st world, our Government will increase 3rd world countries' education. This will help them to become pt. 14. Highly skilled people.
As for those who do not believe, read pt 19.
Link return error on mof websai...
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Originally posted by king108:
I am shamed…
For 1 man 1 machine to 1 man 3 machines. 1 man with 1 head, 2 hands, 2 legs, 2 balls and 1 extra.
Maybe I should learn how to make my extra more productivities.
I am shamed…
Maybe the talented can teach us..
If there are 24 hours a day for you to work, you need to work 25 hours.
Anything less than that means you are too lazy.
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Originally posted by Aneslayer:
Link return error on mof websai...
First class nation with worse ever website.
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Originally posted by Nelstar:
Because you cannot meet gui ren yet.
Wyrd bið ful aræd
Fate remain unstoppable eh...?
or must moi meet the dark wanderer!??!? tis ish moi fate to slay diablo!??!?
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Originally posted by charlize:
If there are 24 hours a day for you to work, you need to work 25 hours.
Anything less than that means you are too lazy.
Jialat riao rah... shoooo sinkies have to work at the 25hours watch shop??? -
Originally posted by ^Acid^ aka s|aO^eH~:
Jialat riao rah... shoooo sinkies have to work at the 25hours watch shop???calculation error...
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Originally posted by ^Acid^ aka s|aO^eH~:
Jialat riao rah... shoooo sinkies have to work at the 25hours watch shop???Selling branded watch leh. dun pray pray.
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You think cheaper better faster say for fun only ah?
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Originally posted by Nelstar:
GDP increase wor.
Gdp increase huat ah.
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Originally posted by charlize:
Gdp increase huat ah.
Raise GST to increase GDP and help the poor.
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Originally posted by Nelstar:
Raise GST to increase GDP and help the poor.
Haiz.
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Reports say salaries will increase but at lower rate.
Who believes?
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why also need to change and hire new people? comeone if that 2 guy really so smart can do everything long time ago train everyone and everyone should know the job already everytime change people means they themselves also don;t know
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Limits in linking productivity to wage increases
By TAN MENG WAH
FOR THE STRAITS TIMESTHE recent headlines and debate over Professor Lim Chong Yah's "wage shock" therapy were in fact a diversion from a deep-seated and long-standing problem: how to raise the incomes of low-wage workers.
Concerned that the "shock therapy" of a mandated across-the-board wage increase may derail economic development, the Government fell back on the hard-to-refute economic maxim that link wages rises to productivity growth.
That sounds perfectly reasonable, but this strategy has its own failings.
Other factors at play
FIRST, the "no productivity growth, no wage adjustment" approach assumes that low productivity is the key, if not the sole cause of low income growth for less-skilled workers.
In reality, other factors may also be at play.
For example, business costs may have gone up rapidly in recent years. Rental for retail outlets, for instance, has shot up because of the growth of REIT (real estate investment trust) activities. This dampens employers' ability to raise the salaries of the large number of low-wage workers in the retail sector.
Secondly, increasing workforce productivity both at the sectoral and the national levels is easier said than done.
Multinational corporations in high value-add manufacturing operations can recoup aggressive capital investments to raise productivity becasue of their high profit margins and economies of scale.
Local manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), on the other hand, will find it hard to defray their capital investment from a lack of scale.
SMEs in the low value-add labour-intensive service sector face even more severe limits in boosting productivity through capital investment.
How can a bus driver who is already driving a double-decker bus increase his total value-add? He can't drive two buses at once.
Elusive quest
THE elusive nature of productivity growth is hardly peculiar to Singapore. Other developed countries face the same problem. A developing economy like China has tremendous room for productivity growth because of market inefficiencies attributable to anti-competitive and rent-seeking actions and policies.
For an ultra-efficient economy like Singapore's, any such room for productivity growth has long been exploited. Research by McKinsey in 2004, for example, revealed that over a period of 30 years, Japan's economic growth was generated more by increases in the number of hours worked and the amount of capital equipment used than by an increase in the workforce's productivity.
A small, mature economy like Singapore faces constraints in boosting productivity. Simply put, there are limits to its factors of production.
Even if capital is pleniful, but labour and land are scarce, there is a limit to how much growth can be achieved even with more productive use of labour and land.
Further captal investments may even result in diminished marginal returns.
If that happens, what recourse is there for workers but to work longer hours to boost income? And for more members to join the workforce to boost household income?
This might explain policymakers' increasing use of household rather than individuals to track income data.
Undervalued workers
ANOTHER limit in linking productivityto wage increases is that the concept of productivity tends to undervalue the efforts of low-wage workers while overvaluing those of the top executives.
In a tightly integrated value chain, the sum is usually more than its parts.
Productivity takes into account the value created directly by each worker but not the surplus value created by the company as a whole.
That surplus value, which shows up as profit, ends up frequently as big pay packets and bonuses to top management as well as fat fees to the board of directors who have a say in the pay of top management.
In the United States, for example, even through output per hour rose by 70 per cent between 1981 and 2006, average real hourly wages were virtually flat, increasing from US$7.88 in 1981 to US$8.23 in 2006.
In contrast, the share of corporate profits in national income in 2006 was close to the highest levels since 1947, and the share of wage income of the top 1 per cent of wage earners was almost double the level recorded in 1980.
Based on data from the US Census Bureau, about 5 per cent of annual income shifted from the middle class to the richest households between 1980 and 2010. In 2010 alone, the wealthiest 5,934 households reaped an additional US$650 billion (S$816 billion) more than what they would have got had the economic pie been apportioned based on the ratio in 1980.
Blame game
FINALLY, blaming the income gap on productivity may conceal underlying and fundamental issues that need to be relooked.
The unfettered pursuit of market fundamentalism, for example, may allow power to be skewed towards increasingly well-organised capital owners.
The entire capitalist system is more attuned to rewarding capital owners who use money to make more money, while shunning workers who have to sweat and toil to barely earn a decent living. It is timely in Singapore for policymakers to re-evaluate priorities so that workers can reclaim the dignity and full value of their labour.
In the end, productivity growth is hardly the panacea to the problem of rising inequality in income distribution: because other factors dampen wage growth; because productivity gains are hard to come by and may be severely limited in a small, mature economy like Singapore; and because gains from productivity, if any may accrue more to management than to workers.
But even if productivity growth is achieved, it is likely that income growth for PMETs (professionals, managers executives and technicians) will outstrip that of unskilled workers, broadening the wage gap.
Wage policies underpinned by productivity growth may allowed incremental pay increases to keep up with inflation, but can do little to narrow the sizeable income gap that already exists. Such fundamental adjustments can realistically only take place by giving employees a larger share of the economic pie.
However, this entails encroaching on the deep-rooted vested interests of other stakeholders, and can only be effected by leaders with strong political will.
In short, simplifying the issue by falling back on an economic maxim about productivity and wages makes good economic sense, but may lose out in overall effectiveness.The writer, who recently finished his PhD in world economics at Nanjing University, is an associate faculty member of UniSIM.
Opinion, The Straits Times, Saturday, June 9 2012, Pg A36 -
The writer needs to read "The Book" that only a select few have the privilege of reading.
As far as I know, only one 17 year old in Sg has access to it.
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Originally posted by Nelstar:
First class nation with worse ever website.
You visit these websites?
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Tough to raise low-wage staff's pay, say firms
Hike similar to civil service's move means higher costs for contract work
BY JANICE HENG and LEE XIN EN
Coffee shop cleaners are one group of low-wage private-sector employees who would benefit from the $50 wage increase recommended by the National Wages Council, said one coffee shop association head. -- ST FILE PHOTO
A DAY after the Government announced that lower-wage civil servants will get a pay rise next month, a number of private-sector employers say a similar move would be a burden.Most of the 20 employers of cleaners, security guards and landscape gardeners interviewed yesterday cited the way business is done as the main obstacle.
Their services are usually provided on a contract basis. And when they bid for contracts, price is the top consideration.
So, if they raise their workers' wages, they would need to quote higher prices - and higher prices in these competitive sectors will probably mean no business, many said. 'We would like to pay our cleaners well, too, but we have to look at whether we can be successful in bidding when our prices are high,' said Mr Derek Tan, manager of cleaning firm Gladen Maintenance Services.
Already, companies are facing rising costs like rent, so it is hard for them to raise wages too, added Joaquim Garden and Landscape director Kenneth Chee.
Employers also argue that pay rises should be tied to improvements in productivity.
On Tuesday, the Government said civil servants earning between $860 and $1,540 a month will get a pay rise of $60 next month.
This is more than the minimum $50 pay rise recommended by the National Wages Council (NWC) for workers whose basic monthly pay is $1,000 or less. Such workers dominate the security, cleaning and landscape industries.
Since 2006, the NWC has tried to coax companies into paying more for their services. Still, monthly wages for the average cleaner have fallen from over $1,200 in 2000 to $960 in 2010.
Mr Tai Kwang Kit, director of cleaning firm Avon Group, hopes the Government's lead in raising wages will convince clients to not simply 'clamour for the cheapest service providers.'
Aero Asia Security Systems is one company that has convinced its clients to pay more. Its guards will thus get a $50 raise this year, said general manager Selva Kumar.
But not many security firms can do the same because a basic pay rise of $50 means overtime pay will rise in tandem, said Security Association (Singapore) president T. Mogan.
As most guards work four hours of overtime a day, at 1.5 times the basic salary, there will be a steep rise in manpower costs.
In sectors that do not rely on contracts, pay rises are likely.
Coffee shop association head Hong Poh Hin expects most coffee shops to give the recommended $50 increase to their stall assistants and cleaners.
'It's quite hard to get workers nowadays, so paying more will help,' said Mr Hong, chairman of the Foochow Coffee Restaurant and Bar Merchants Association.
This likelihood will bring cheer to people like Madam Jiang Nee, 63, who clears plates at a Toa Payoh hawker centre. Paid less than $1,000 a month, she has not had a pay rise in three years.
She said she will use the extra money for her sister's medicines.
Others said any pay rise would help defray expenses such as utility bills, groceries and transport.
But stall assistant Goh Hock Chee, 50, said: 'I don't care much for such a small increase. It doesn't cover food, utilities or transport.' However, a stall assistant who wanted to be known only as Mr Wang quipped: 'Well, $50 is little, but it's enough to buy a ray of hope - a Toto ticket!'
Home, The Straits Times, Thurday, June 7 2012, Pg B2