Singapore's Lament: Too Many Jobs

Multinationals in Singapore' are facing a brand of criticism seldom voiced, by Third World governments. Political leaders in this city-state of 2.3 million complain that foreign corporations, by concentrating their investments in labor-intensive electronics assembly and textile plants, arc creating "too many" jobs. As a result of a boom in foreign investment over the past five years, Singapore is experiencing a serious labor shortage and a surge of immigration from its job-hungry neighbors.

Workers from Malaysia traditionally have augmented Singapore's low-wage labor pool. But despite increased immigration of late, the country now confronts a shortage of 15,000 workers. And government officials are reluctant to permit a further influx of' temporary workers, fearing that growing employment of foreign labor will leave Singapore vulnerable to politically-motivated threats by foreign governments to recall their citizens. Recent studies estimate that alien workers already number 120,000 nearly 15 percent of Singapore's labor force.

Multinationals and governmental leaders arc at odds over a solution to the labor shortages. Textile and electronics firms are searching frantically for workers to staff their production lines. General Electric, whose eight plants employ 14,000 Singaporeans, recently offered a$50 bon us to new employees staying on the job for two weeks. Componenti Electronici, an Italian multinational, actually began a door-to-door campaign for workers.

Minister of Trade Goh Chok Tong, however, rejects stepped-up recruitment as a long-term solution to Singapore's labor problems. Tong has criticized the multinationals' reluctance to replace textile and electronics factories with plants utilizing highly skilled labor and sophisticated technology. He is calling for an end to "the vicious circle of dependence on cheap foreign labor.

But foreign corporations have shown little interest in adopting capital-intensive processes. Despite reservations expressed by political leaders, labor-intensive multinationals continue to flock to Singapore: Coors Industries and Berg Electronics, a subsidiary of DuPont Co., are building labor-intensive assembly plants in this country already straining to fill positions at existing factories with its own citizens