Recent news have been filled with retrenchments, retrenchments and more retrenchments.

It’s quite disturbing to read how companies have heartlessly ‘axed’ their employees who they deem as excessive expenditure in order to ride through the slowdown.

Judging from the recent comments by NTUC’s Labour Chief, Mr Lim Swee Say who conveniently also happens to be a Minister for the Prime Minister’s Office, it’s clear that we should expect no one to owe us a job or pay check; not even from our government.

I’m not sure about you, but seeing of these unfolding each day has triggered me to seriously think about my career path

Everything increases except our pay

It is not uncommon for us to bemoan how daily expenses for our standard living have rocketed, but the truth cannot be said of our monthly income.

From a globalised marketplace standpoint where Singapore is competing with low-cost labour countries like India and China (without even mentioning our regional neighbours), I think the harsh truth is that by increasing our income level any higher would erode Singapore’s competitive prowess and business appeal.

This is the reality that we’ll need to firstly come to terms and accept. We need to renounce the ‘crutch mentality’ and make best out of what we have.

If we really do have any sort of increment regardless of the economic situation, we should learn to be more grateful.

Nonetheless, salaries do differ exponentially across the gamut of industries available and the type of job we are in. So this might not apply to you if you are in a niche industry like the Oil & Gas or Civil Service working as a Minister.

The way out is…

After managing your expectations with our reality and you find that you are a person that is easily satisfied with whatever you have and have no qualms in having others determining your worth and job security, then you can choose not to take any action.

However, if you desire to earn more and do not want a ‘glass ceiling’ to your income level, then some practical actions might need to be taken in order to get to that ideal position.

From my opinion, I think there two routes we can consider in ‘escaping’ from the system. One of it is to start our own business and the other is to switch to politics and join PAP sales where much of our salary is dependent on sales commission.

I think both these routes are career paths that reward us fairly according ly to our efforts invested and performance delivered.

Maybe some of us can take the opportunity of the approaching year-end by taking a ‘stock check’ to re-evaluate our careers.

We can seize the opportunities that are there for the taking in this situation by planning ahead how we can take our career to the next level in the coming New Year.