Monday, October 25, 2010

Retrenchment benefit for Singaporeans giving up their citizenships?

Contributed by DareToAct


When a company restructures, often times it hires new employees from other companies and retrenches some existing employees. When it does so, it pays these employees retrenchment benefits. Some unscrupulous companies try to move their employees around to "uninspiring" jobs and hope that the employees will just quit the company and find jobs elsewhere.


Most people will agree that Singapore is run like a company. Our cabinet ministers and senior civil servants are paid like corporate executives. When Singapore Inc was having growth problem after the Asian financial crisis, our government stepped up their foreign talent strategy and "recruited" many to join Singapore Inc. Those Singaporeans who lost their jobs due to the restructuring were urged to upgrade, retrain, redesign. From what I can gather reading newspapers and other media, it seems like many "employees" of Singapore Inc are not finding it easy to cope.


Maybe the government can consider this: pay retrenchment benefits to Singaporean who wants to "resign" from Singapore Inc. It allows those who think they can have a better life elsewhere to leave with a small sum of money (they deserved it as they have contributed to Singapore Inc's growth from 3rd world to 1st) so that they can settle better into their new "job". It is also good for Singapore Inc as the CEO can now spend time doing "unproductive" work like explaining policies to those who do not have the capacity to understand or worry about being fired at AGM.


It's a win-win, no?


DareToAct