The entire day was spent chatting back and forth with my colleague who is resigning, my APAC boss, and my manager. The annoying thing is that my manager was blaming me for not flagging the issue about my colleague’s e-pass always being challenged by MoM. I wanted to lash at my manager but I just said, I HAD BEEN PUSHING for this since Day 1 I took over! You guys had known about this ever since she transferred to Singapore.
APAC boss was more reasonable and she acknowledges that colleague was underpaid.
They’re making a counter-offer.
Stupid. Why only do that now?!
My colleague’s transfer to another more well-known company is already a done deal. She told my manager, when she asked how much is she going to get paid in the new company, my colleague said: more than 50%.
It’s so annoying and mentally exhausting trying to explain to them where the company has been wrong about us, about Singapore, about everything else in this region.
When I took the Self-Assessment Test for E-pass, the minimum pay for my rank, age, and educational attainment is SGD 13k. That’s just the minimum and of course you can’t go just the minimum if you want a stress-free e-pass application/renewal. One well-known competitor has been offering 14-20k, another less well-known one is offering SGD 15k for an editor (and not a bureau chief). So my company has to level off with market rates, otherwise MoM would say, just hire a local if you don’t want to spend so much for an import.
That’s why a big global bank decided to keep their internal editorial positions in HK because it was just expensive for them to hire in SG and they couldn’t get talented local ones.
And SGD 15k a month is not a lot if you have dependents given the expensive education, housing (SGD 4.5k for an HDB flat), and general cost of living in Singapore.
My head was bleeding by afternoon. I had to take a nap to ease the tension on my back muscles. I was supposed to draft two articles today but that noble intention just flew out of the window.
Fuck it.
I will request for an across-the-board pay hikes in my region.
Median salary increase budgets across industries next year are forecast at 6.8% for Indonesia, 5.1% for Malaysia, 6% for the Philippines, 4.7% for Singapore, 5.1% for Thailand and 7.9% for Vietnam, according to New York Stock Exchange-listed services company Aon. All figures exceed 2022 rates except for Malaysia’s, which is flat.
If they fire me because I’m just fighting for my people’s welfare, then fuck you, employer!