Public Sector Is Hiring

My dad related to me an encounter he had at the polyclinic this morning. Apparently after his regular check-up, the nurse attending to me had asked him whether he was still working at his age. My dad replied in the affirmative. The nurse was nevertheless insistent. She said that if my dad needed a job, he could leave his IC number with the front desk and they would endeavour to find a job for older folks like him.

I can't be certain whether an official directive has been given to our healthcare agencies to recuit older Singaporeans like my dad. I wouldn't be surprised if this was indeed the case, especially since there is an imminent tightening of the foreign worker quota (my dad, who works in a coffeeshop, would be pretty useful in a polyclinic, although as we both snickered, the polyclinic may not be able to afford his 'high' wages).

We appear to be adopting a national strategy of providing welfare through jobs. Certainly the public sector has been given the green light to recruit. 18,000 new jobs in the public sector have been promised, including 3,000 teachers alone (this would be an expansion of approximately 15% of the public sector).

On the social welfare level, I am supportive of such a strategy. We are experiencing an economic crisis that is unprecedented on many levels, and unemployed Singaporeans need all the help they can get from the Govt. On the organisational level though, I do have some concerns.

Officially, we are told that all 18,000 jobs are necessary, productive jobs. Yet this implies that either we have been deliberately running under optimal capacity for some time (which in turn suggests that the public sector is actually relatively uncompetitive because we are unable to hire up to our full capacity in good times) or we have decided to be run a more inefficient and bloated public sector at this time of crisis (which apart from being perverse, will be paid out from higher future taxes).

Either way, it looks bad.

Bloatedness is usually more damaging to the public sector than a private company, because it is much more difficult to exit poor performing officers. Public sector firing is a no-go at this dire time, where compassion from the public serviceis needed. The flip side to bear in mind, though, is that every job held by a poor performing Singaporean is a job denied to a better performing, but unemployed, Singaporean out there.