Chinese Upheaval May Benefit Engineer-Hungry Singapore

Seizing what it views as a golden recruitment opportunity in the aftermath of China’s military crackdown in June, the government of Singapore is eyeing the highly skilled pool of Chinese students in the United States.

Singapore faces a shortage of engineers needed by international companies, and officials are hoping some of the students may welcome the chance to work in Singapore, rather than going home when their student visas expire.

The Singapore Economic Development Board in Los Angeles, which in 1987 began recruiting engineering graduates from U.S. schools, conducted a recruitment campaign in March that drew about 200 applications, 30 of them from Chinese nationals, said K. K. Chan, director of the board’s Los Angeles office.

After the June bloodshed in China, the board decided to extend a special invitation to Chinese nationals who will soon graduate from U.S. universities.

“Because of the uncertainties in China, we thought maybe they will be interested in working in Singapore,” Chan said. “These people who come out (from China) are the cream of the country. I would say it’s a good target to aim at.”

Besides offering good salaries relative to Singapore’s cost of living, Singapore will expedite immigration applications for the professional recruits, he said. Seventy-six percent of Singapore residents are of Chinese ancestry, and the development board is hoping that fact will make the country appealing to Chinese nationals looking for a familiar culture.

The government also has been actively recruiting in Hong Kong, hoping to attract professionals there who may be wary of 1997, when Britain’s lease expires and the colony is to be returned to China. Although 3.25 million Hong Kong residents hold British passports, Britain has denied them the right to freely immigrate there.

After Singapore announced in July a program to recruit up to 100,000 Hong Kong workers, the response was so great that Hong Kong police had to be called in to control unruly crowds of job applicants.

Singapore is home to nearly 700 international companies with manufacturing operations and more than 3,200 companies with service operations, creating a constant demand for engineering professionals. While the country’s two universities, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological Institute, together graduate close to 1,000 engineers a year, the country still must recruit 200 to 300 overseas engineers to meet the demand, Chan said.

Electrical and mechanical engineers are the most sought after, he said. An engineer with a bachelor’s degree could expect to be paid about $650 to $900 a month while one with a doctorate could receive between $1,500 to $2,000--salaries that would guarantee extremely comfortable life styles given Singapore’s cost of living, Chan said.

(In Singapore, the average salary for beginning production workers such as assemblers and mechanics is $236 a month, according to 1988 statistics from the Singapore Ministry of Labor. The average for beginning technicians is $300 a month.)

The island republic previously only granted permanent residence to college graduates, professionals or business people with capital of at least $500,000. It is now recruiting any candidate with a secondary education and five years of work experience.

Singapore’s recent “two is enough” family planning campaign “has been too successful,” Chan said, explaining why the population growth rate has slowed in the country of 2.6 million people. The government is now offering tax benefits to couples who have a third child, he said.

For Chinese nationals whose U.S. visas are about to expire but who fear persecution or political uncertainty if they return to their homeland, the prospects of permanent residency in a country outside China could be very appealing.

Yong-ping Zeng, a University of Southern California student who will soon graduate, would like to stay in the United States when he graduates, but he sent a resume to the development board last week to keep his options open.

It’s not easy getting a job in the United States, he said. “First they require you to have a green card, but to get a card you need a job. It’s a bad circle.”

But Wang Shiqing, a post-doctoral researcher at UCLA who is not job hunting, said even if he were, he would not find Singapore attractive as a place to live.

“It’s such a small place,” Wang said of the country that’s about one-fifth the size of Rhode Island.