Migrant Workers in Pacific Asia

Yaw A. Debrah

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781135293376
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Labour Economics
• Index: Economics

The migration of workers to the high growth countries in Pacific Asia in the 1980s was a new phenomenon in these countries. As such the host governments did not have in place adequate housing, social security and legal protection, but the tight controls following the financial crisis have pushed these issues to the back burner.This volume discusses the debates and controversies surrounding this issue in Malaysia, Taiwan, SIngapore, South Korea, Japan and China.

The Political Economy of Migrant Worker Policy in Singapore

LINDA LOW

Singapore has been a migrant society since its founding by the British in 1819. Migration from China and India peaked around the 1840s propelled by its economic growth as an entrepêt for the Malayan hinterland. This historical legacy grounded the economics of its migrant labour policy as Singapore continues to be reliant on migrant workers. Over time, the highly selective migrant policy dictated by the economic imperative has been fine-tuned and adjusted to increasingly socio-political considerations. The political economy of a migrant labour policy has changed in character largely in terms of skills need, sourcing from traditional to non-traditional countries affecting the nationality and ethnicity base while simultaneously maintaining an implicit ethnic equation of a largely Chinese population.

With the new or knowledge-based economy (KBE) and the need for creative and innovative skills which Singapore lacks, its immigration policy has been liberalized at the upper professional end for foreign talents. Yet, going for foreign talents to serve economic needs has also to be squared with and not upset the socio-political stability engendered by full employment and good living standards enjoyed by local talents. Older and less skilled Singaporeans may not be as easily convinced of pure rational arguments of market competition and new economy as easily especially when some inevitable threat or displacement of their current positions is perceived.

The Singapore model is typically very topdown and bureaucratic with a strong hand of government. Given the political economy of migrant labour and labour supply as a critical cornerstone of competitiveness, how it can continue to pursue a market-driven labour market in tandem with foreign talents is an interesting case. How its policy environment and the highly selective policy to pick and choose foreign workers and talents based on economic criteria may be useful to others in the Asia Pacific region even if its policy style is more nuanced and may not be directly applicable.

There is an unsurprising lack of published data and information which unfortunately precludes the analysis of patterns and trends of migrant workers as both the magnitude and sources of immigration are deemed confidential and politically sensitive. There is greater expression by way of policy and strategy than quantitative empirical evidence. Still, Singapore offers an interesting case of switching from low-skilled migrant workers to a policy of foreign talents while trying to preserve its sovereignty and bonding its people as a nation.

With the above themes set, this essay aims to assess how Singapore has harnessed labour resources effectively and optimally, averting socio-political problems associated with a migrant labour supply. The economic and employment structure is presented, followed by policies and effects of foreign workers and talents. Issues and implications based on a political economy perspective of migrant workers and the vision of Singapore as a talent capital as enunciated in 1999 are evaluated in the conclusions. More than any other Asia Pacific economies, Singapore is cognisant of the regional and global contexts translated into challenges of globalisation and governance in international relations and international political economy.

Economic and Employment Structure in Singapore

Singapore is a small, open city-state and its resultant dependence on trade and factor inflows meant it had neither the choice nor luxury to be schizophrenic or protectionist. It has maintained an open-door, competitive policy except for a brief period of import-substitution industrialisation. Unemployment and communist-inspired industrial unrest with stagnating entrepêt activities and a post-war baby boom in the late 1950s and 1960s prompted an equally brief merger with Malaysia with the promise of a common market. Since 1965, exportoriented industrialization propelled by regional and global booms turned the economy around by the early 1970s with signs of full employment (see Chng et al., 1986 and Low et al. (eds.) 1992 for more detailed literature). Further upgrading to capital and skill-intensive manufacturing and services in the 1980s and to a KBE in the late 1990s have enabled the city-state to attain per capita income of US$24,600 by 1999. By most economic indicators except the levels of educational attainment of its workforce and achievement in science and technology, it is hard to deny its developed country status (Low, 1999).

Singapore is an epitome of an urban service-oriented economy whose manufacturing sector has to compete at more high-end brain and virtual activities. More than the other city-state of Hong Kong which has reverted to China, Singapore flies solo in its economic trajectory as a sovereign state with economic Cupertino underpinned by its membership in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Asia Pacific Economic Cupertino (APEC). Industrializing on the backs of direct foreign investment (DFI) and multinational corporations (MNCs) meant growing with interdependence through globalization. Both the volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods, services and factor flows have grown with the rapid and widespread diffusion of information communication technology (ICT). There are as many opportunities and challenges of such an open economy on both the demand and supply sides, tying the economy to the vicissitudes and cycles of the global capitalism.

The mental mode of the developmental state has to adapt to two new trends, both with significant implications for intellectual capital and talents. The first is that the new economy meant the world is based on a mastery of flows of production and purchasing power. Producers only have proprietary rights of machines and physical capital, not stocks of goods, education and human capital. The second is the emergence of a virtual state which has increasingly to lodge a part of its production abroad to allow it to reshape both productive and international relationships (Rosecrance, 1999, pp xii and 5-6). A virtual state will specialize in higher value-added intangible goods, products of the mind as in research and development (R&D), product design, finance, marketing, transport, insurance and legal and other professional services.

Thus, as regional economies in ASEAN and East Asia, notably China, launched into similar export-led industrialization, Singapore restructures and upgrades continuously to maintain its international competitiveness in areas suited to its resources and capabilities. Its most enduring attraction for DFI and MNCs remains its human resources since ICT has diluted any strategic locational advantages. There is an implicit upper bound to manufacturing production which is increasingly differentiated into high technology and high-skilled pursuits. Singapore has to maximize its infrastructural efficiency and capacity as overseas headquarters and node in R&D, testing, warehousing, treasury, logistics and other value-added functions for MNCs. Small size has its compensation in effective management and sound governance. But vigilance to maintain such attraction and competitiveness is crucial as regional economies pursue similar strategies.

In terms of economic structure, Table 1 shows that manufacturing in 1999 accounted for some one-fifth of gross domestic product (GDP), financial and business services another 30 per cent, co...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Migrant Workers in Pacific Asia
• The 'Host' State and the 'Guest Worker' in Malaysia: Public Management of Migrant Labour in Times of Economic Prosperity and Crisis
• The Role of Low-skilled Foreign Workers in Taiwan's Economic Development
• The Unwilling Hosts: State, Society and the Control of Guest Workers in South Korea
• The Political Economy of Migrant Worker Policy in Singapore
• Foreign Workers and Labour Migration Policy in Japan
• Rural Migrants in Urban China: Willing Workers, Invisible Residents
• Notes on Contributors
• Abstracts
• Index