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t is a fact that many of the fresh graduates and young professionals from Indonesia are excluding themselves from opportunities in foreign countries, which are offering fruitful prospects to perceive the outside world and provide them with a preferable quality of life.

I can roughly calculate that around 40 percent of my friends who graduated from the same university in Indonesia are now working in one of its nearest neighboring countries — Singapore.

Out of curiosity, I asked my friends (who are mostly working as IT consultants, graphic designers or architects) what makes Singapore appealing for them as a place for living and career endeavor (regardless of its well-known over the top civic regulations in the public space)?

First is the diversity. I strongly believe that diversity is bliss. It is a feature of modernity that was also argued by Louis Wirth, an American sociologist and a member of the Chicago School of Sociology. At the city level, the component of diversity lays on a city’s capability as the melting pot of races, people and culture.

Second is the “familiarity”. Living in Singapore is not a culture shock when compared to other foreign countries and fabulously, it is only an hour’s flight from Jakarta. It has a similar climate and atmosphere as many cities in Indonesia and it’s variety of culinary offerings often meet the “tongue” of the Indonesian people.

Third, and the most significant, is the low rate of income tax, a 20 percent CPF contribution makes Singapore’s income tax one of the lowest in the world and a minimum wage of S$2,000 (US$1,639), the average wage per month in 2011 was S$3,349 (Comprehensive labor force survey Singapore, 2012).

With a very modest lifestyle (and being single), my friends save nearly half of their wages and in fact spend most of it in Indonesia. This is the finest allure for young professionals to work in Singapore. They also confirmed that overseas work experience provides greater possibilities to improve skills and develop knowledge, while others whose qualifications were not recognized in their receiving country saw their skills diminish while abroad, making return difficult.

A country that was constructed by immigrants, Singapore is a foreign-talent friendly nation, which is manifested in the amount of multinational headquarters penetrating the Asian economic market (around 4,000). The country survived the global economic crisis thanks to its ability to sustain structural reforms aimed at enhancing competitiveness. In regards to the burgeoning sector of foreign labor, skilled workers and professionals account for 22 percent (about 240,000) of Singapore’s total nonresident workforce (Singapore census, 2010).

Many of these skilled professionals come from the United States, Britain, France and Australia as well as Japan and South Korea.

Singapore has established its place as a major player in the globalized world main economic strategy based on being home to a highly skilled workforce. The country’s strong investments are focused on information technology and human capital to enable it to compete on a global scale.

Ammalia Podlaszewska
Poland