Rants on Facebook are as common as cute cat videos on YouTube, but other than a couple of comments and emojis, they are usually forgotten the next day.
It’s just another avenue for netizens to vent, and for other netizens to listen.
So, when this man ranted about Standard Chartered favouring foreign workers, it was a bit of a surprise when the financial services company actually responded.
Man Alleges That Standard Chartered Favours Foreign Nationals
The hullabaloo started when a Facebook user shared a post in which he claimed that most of Standard Chartered’s staff were not locals, implying the company were more inclined to hire foreign nationals.
In his post, the man said that his friend, a Chinese Singaporean who was working at Standard Chartered, claimed that he was the only Chinese employee at meetings.
His friend has since quit the company.
The man then shared a photo of what appears to be Standard Chartered’s employee page on LinkedIn, which shows several Indian employees in different positions.
“Look at the pic shared by a FB friend and tell me do ALL these positions require any special skills or competencies that SGNs (Singaporeans) cannot do?”, the man said.
The implication here is that Standard Chartered is choosing to hire Indian nationals instead of Singaporeans, for some reason.
Standard Chartered Said 70% of Its Staff Are S’poreans
On Wednesday (12 Aug), three days after the post, the bank issued a press release titled “Standard Chartered remains committed to investing in talent in Singapore”.
In it, the bank said it has strengthened its workforce in the last few years from 8,000 to 10,000 to support business growth.
This includes growing the Singaporean Core, which forms the vast majority of the bank’s
workforce, they said.
“In fact, Singapore Citizens from different ethnicities, backgrounds and age groups, now
form 70% of the Bank’s Singapore subsidiary here.”
While there’s no way to verify if this was a response to the man’s Facebook post, the company emphasised in the press release that they are committed to ensuring a “robust Singapore core pipeline”, and that “70% of its Singapore management team are
Singaporeans.”
At the end of the release, the banking company said that it provides equal opportunities to all employees, and that it strongly supports “a culture of diversity and inclusion”.
“The Bank strongly supports the Government’s policies to promote an inclusive society and has zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind, in and outside the workplace.”
Leaping to Conclusions
It should be noted that the man who shared the Facebook post had no legitimate evidence to back his claims, and couldn’t prove that the Indian employees listed were in fact foreign workers.
But netizens believed him and slammed the company and government for their ‘biased’ policies.
Many Singaporeans seem to have a perception that foreign workers are coming here and stealing our jobs, even though they have nothing to corroborate their claims.
As Kirsten Han says in We The Citizens, the country’s immigration policies should certainly be open to critique and discussion, but whenever the topic is brought up, netizens invariably veer into xenophobia, as you’d see in the comments section of these posts.
Sandbox Advisors also pointed out that it isn’t as easy as it seems for foreigners to get jobs in Singapore. Anyone who’s scoured online job boards in Singapore will notice that most job postings state that only Singaporeans or Permanent Residents should apply.
Typically, there are also fewer job listings for foreigners than Singaporeans on these sites.
So, is it really true that foreign workers are stealing our jobs? Or is it just a conspiracy theory we conjured up to compensate for our own inadequacies?
Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:
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