preview

Singapore's Rapid Economic Development Essay

Best Essays

4 NEGATIVE IMPACT OF RAPID ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 4.1 AGING POPULATION Local and foreign labour are deemed essential to Singapore’s workforce in order to sustain competitiveness in economic development. However long standing past policy implication and current policy taken by the Government to spur economic development, could be argued to affect the labour market and SMEs in the long run. The past and current policies that might inflicted negative impact to labour market and SMEs are elaborated as follow: 1) Curbing Singapore growing population during early economic development is arguably the main factor leading to Singapore lower birth rate. This argument has been supported by Asher (2008) saying Singapore has experienced below-replacement …show more content…

Supply of low skilled worker especially in non PMET market would be scarce especially for domestic service industries driven by local SMEs. SMEs normally run with small capital would face tougher business environment. SMEs would not be able to increase their productivity in a shorter time as they could not leverage on technology. Eventually they would have to compromise their service levels which in return force the consumers to adjust to uncertainty. The potential growth of SMEs industry would be hampered which in return impede Singapore’s economic growth. According to Dr Chua Hak Bin, economist at Bank of Merrill Lynch, Singapore’s tight foreign labour policy could cost the economy 1.3% points of growth in 2014 which in the long run degrade Singapore’s competitive landscape with ailing domestic businesses. Besides dampening local business competitiveness, ageing population and restricted foreign labour may lead to a lower level of innovation. As productivity growth is associated with higher innovation and improving technology, reports from high-income OECD countries suggests that the median age of the population is negatively correlated with total factor productivity (OECD, 2013). 4.2 BRAIN DRAIN Past policy of tailoring education to manpower has contributed its fair share to Singapore’s economic development. However, globalization

Get Access