NOTHING illustrates the boom conditions Singapore is experiencing better than the September quarter's preliminary jobless rate dipping to 1.7 per cent against the previous quarter's 2.3 per cent - and the frenetic bidding for workers.
After all data are in for the last quarter of the year, a period of few movements pending bonus payouts, Singapore should be sitting pretty on full employment or near to it.
This is tremendous.
It is also when a slosh of cold water in the face could bring a more wakeful state.
If companies are to be taken at their word, ready-made and entry-level workers in many sectors are so scarce their only response is to offer higher wages. In finance, a doubling and more in salary for entrants from non-financial fields is typical. The hospitality, law, marine and construction engineering sectors are snapping at the banks' heels.
Across the board, young executives and mid-level managers who tell colleagues they are eager for 'new challenges'' (actually, angling for fatter pay) are pushing the wage spiral. They get what they seek.
There are two problems with the scenario that are discernible. The first is the little acknowledged risk of wage inflation (relative to productivity) combined with impossible rent demands showing up in higher business costs and thinner profits.
When chief financial officers get around to alerting their boards to the pernicious effects of mindless bidding for manpower, it could be too late.
The second issue is a labour fundamental: This is basically a poaching season in full cry.
Companies of muscle are getting the people they want at the expense of weaker ones unable to keep staff on existing terms.
There is no net gain in the available labour pool to fill jobs coming onstream, after each new undergraduate and polytechnic graduating class is absorbed.
Foreign manpower is a ready alternative. But the political management of the people's sensitivities as always has to be adroit, whatever the clarity of policy.
consequence: another nudge up the wage spiral. Medium-sized firms may seize up, while big ones will have to stinge somewhere in their operations to keep up with analysts' profit forecasts.
Companies need to do a better job of keeping staff contented to stabilise the situation, and not only with well-timed pay increments.
There are youngish executives for whom having a life trumps frequent job switches to chase the money. Clearer career paths, reasonable hours, generous health-care and social provisions, paid sabbaticals and also internships for final-year students are management practices that have not filtered down much from the upper corporate strata.
Imagination is expected of human resource departments in these conditions.
