Engineering in Singapore?
Read a very interesting article on Salary.sg regarding engineering in Singapore. It worries that Singapore is increasingly becoming “high cost, low tech”, and that careers in engineering in Singapore is losing out to business, finance and accountancy careers. It follows on a long discussion on that site of how engineering is a dead end career, and how President’s scholars in the past two batches are not doing engineering.
I recall visiting friends in NUS and SMU over the summer break, and the general reaction to me telling them I was now an engineer was one of “what?!” Many of them were studying business (or some combination thereof), and a great many harbored ambitions of going to work in a finance or banking outfit. The remaining lot either wanted to be doctors or lawyers, and some perceived engineering subjects as somewhat of a “dumping ground”. The few technology startups I saw were staffed by mostly foreign students.
It was in general a huge difference from what I was used to in Silicon Valley, where engineers are in the greatest demand by startups and corporations alike. Singapore’s push to become a financial hub has created jobs in the banking and finance sectors, but perhaps we have not yet developed a “dependable” technological innovation industry that makes us less suspect to the vagaries of global finance. The earlier Solow, and later Romer and Jones model of economic growth unanimously point to productivity growth (either through technological innovation, or more efficient allocation) as the key driver of sustained economic growth. Singapore arguably has a limit to which it can further reallocate its resources; thus technological innovation may remain Singapore’s long-term option for the future. And innovation does not mean research- it means research that can be spun off into start-ups (e.g. Google, etc) or sold as commercial technologies.
At this point it is interesting to look at another country which has done so. Israel, a country of relatively similar circumstances, has one of the largest technology industries in the world, as this fascinating article writes (it also includes a reference to Singapore, in a not-so-positive way). A quote from the article:
Israel’s economic growth has not been based on easy credit or a real estate boom, but on the technology-driven productivity gains that economists believe is the key to sustained economic growth.
Interesting stuff. Perhaps Singapore’s future lies away from her entrepot past- where the country’s fortunes were made on her being a hub for business, trade and finance- and instead lies in producing ideas, the new goods of the global economy.
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interesting thoughts.
just my own thoughts, for the economic growth models, i would think innovation as a means of pushing out the boundaries within which resource allocation can take place. like pushing out the PPC, increasing PEG. the angle you are arguing from however, for these innovations to be sold commercially like Google etc, you are focusing on the AEG that technological products can contribute to. but, financial products, legal services etc can do the same!
thus i believe the real difference engineering can bring, is in the PEG, changing things from 2 units of resource for 5 units of product to 1 unit of resource for the same amount of products. but with the state of globalization today, making acquisition of technology easier, is tech still a limiting reagent to our growth?
my humble thoughts.
Hi Daniel,
I happened to chance upon your blog when i was surfing the internet. What you spoke is close to my heart and especially when I am pursuing a Engineering course in NUS. Even some of my peers even see themselves being in the “dumping ground” and some would venture into other fields upon graduation. But reason being that the other occupations are more glamorous and offered a higher pay and being in engineering is a route to a degree to a decent ricebowl.
It is a stark difference of the people’s attitude towards engineering that you spoke of.Is it the demand that made the difference tor the passion to start up that drives the best to pursue engineering?
Wee Kim
[...] Arguably, they will be the key creators on jobs in the future, as Singapore moves toward a start-up/innovation driven economy. Of course, the crucial question is always how much (and what type of) immigration is the right [...]
Engineering in Singapore is dead because we are a nation of managers! Everybody wants to be manager.
CEO and COO of SMRT are not engineers. CEO is NUS Biochem grad heading DFS stores, COO is NUS Arts grad(U of phoenix MBA) heading DFS HR dept. They know nothing about trains/operations. Their pay? CEO 1.3Mil COO 875k
CFO, CIO and other non-technical staff 400k each.
Their subordinates are very senior engineers 20-30 yrs in the industry, earning only 200-300k. Handful of engineering heads. Not forgetting the poor senior engineers, also 20-30 yrs experience, drawing less than 100k.
So, non-engineers can take over the helm of hardcore engineering companies and get high pay. Who want to study engineering?
Investment bankers, business/finance guys earning more than engineers.
I’m sure they’ve proven themselves in other fields- and I’m quite sure that Biochemistry at NUS is as close to engineering as you can get. Perhaps they were hired for leadership and management skills, rather than technical skills- to be a CEO rather than a CTO. At that level, MBA-sort skills are perhaps more important than engineering skills. You can read a little about CEO stats here: http://www.taibros.net/archives/2005/11/07/so-you-want-to-be-a-ceo
I was talking about this with another friend recently. It all comes down to median/mean/worst-case salaries- engineering/science people have a guaranteed sort of salary (you can always fall back on your technical skill) while the same can’t be said of other degrees. Once you view it through that lens, you’ll understand why a lot of people would put in the hard work to be engineers.