Singapore is a small country, with a huge population of well educated people. The conundrum is, this is a small country, so there will not be enough jobs for all these people.
There are many people out there who are overqualified for their jobs, who would easily find better paying jobs in other countries, and hence they are moving out of Singapore.
Add that to the fact the Singapore practices what is on most counts, a ruthless meritocracy, and you soon end up with a system where the haves quickly outpace the have-nots, simply because the haves get more at the expense of the have-nots, regardless of actual ability.
There is a system in Singapore that the government actively practices in finding what it believes are the best and brightest of the crop in Singapore - scholarships. It believes that the best way to tie the best talents to the civil service is to sponsor their education, and slap huge bonds on them so they cannot flee for greener pastures.
The problem is, the talented will inevitably seek out greener pastures because their talents merit them. And the best paying jobs are all to be found in the private sector, because the civil service can only pay so much. So unfortunately, these talents will be lost to the private sector.
Equally superficial is the method of filtering out such talent. A couple of interviews, a perfect grade transcript, and you have a golden ticket to a safe and comfortable lifestyle because you will simply promote faster than your peers by virtue of the fact that you're a scholar and they are not. Regardless of actual ability by the way.
Working in SPH, I have realised that there is little point in trying out for a career in the company, simply because in every sense of the word, I have already missed the boat. I am not a scholar, and no matter how much ability I have, I will never make it to the upper echelons of the company, simply because there are too many scholars ahead of me.
Government-linked companies in Singapore have this odd concept of letting scholars start at a higher payscale, and promoting them faster than other employees, simply because they are on scholarships. If they were truly capable, I believe there wouldn't be a need to do so because they would promote faster anyway by virtue of their working ability.
Working ability by the way, is a combination of many things. Emotional intelligence, aptitude for the job, and day-to-day work attitude, none of which can accurately be determined by the simplistic basis of a scholarship selection.
There are limited places in senior management, and if these scholars are to constantly start with a ridiculous headstart and get fast-tracked on top of it, what hope do other non-scholar yet equally or even more capable employees have of making inroads into a better paying position?
Am I supposed to accept that just because a young upstart aced an interview and exam a few years ago, he can come in with a higher starting salary than me and promote faster even if I constantly put out work of a higher quality than him? Does that make sense to you? Would you even want to work for a company like that?
And the civil service wonders why it has problems retaining some of its brightest and most capable talents. Perhaps it is hubris on my part that I am suggesting I am one of those talents that have fallen out of the system. But I do not speak for myself alone, because I do know that one thing people hate most is having less competent superiors who draw larger salaries.
If you have ever wondered why your superiors are ridiculously incompetent, perhaps it is a result of the system we are putting in place to lift them above our heads.