[hellofunk]

There is indeed a strong race gap in the Singapore workforce, worse than the well-known gender gap in American pay equality. If you are on a work permit from the Philippines, for example, you will get paid far less than another in your department doing the same work from Western nations or a Singaporean local. This is a fact of life there that runs through all the industries. It is also quite common to see job postings in Singapore that only allow certain races to apply; these are more blue-collar jobs.

[kranner]

> It is also quite common to see job postings in Singapore that only allow certain races to apply; these are more blue-collar jobs.

There are also white-collar jobs which will code this as "fluency in Mandarin required", which means you'd better be ethnic Chinese if you want to be considered.

[hellofunk]

If it's because the job genuinely requires the language skills, you'll find that all around the world. But if they're using that to mask a desire for particular race, that's different. However, most Singaporeans are not qualified for this job since most are not actually fluent in Chinese.

[kranner]

I meant the latter. It's used to signal that an employer will prefer to hire an ethnic Chinese person. Another phrase used is "Chinese working environment".

There's some discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/3bp5ql/the_stupi...

[HKs81e0]

and what a discussion, it's a well known that the r/Singapore is one of the most toxic expat communities in the entire reddit, full of spite and jaded cynicism toward anything, from the government, to the city and even signs of blatantly racism toward Singaporeans.

a truly horribly sub.

[kranner]

They say exactly the same thing about r/India by the way, but that doesn't mean the facts under discussion are inaccurate.