[pydry]

Or they've emigrated in search of those higher salaries already.

I used to work in a relatively "low salary programming culture" and it wasn't just the salary that sucked in that location, the programmers did too. Smart people either emigrated or ventured into a profession that made $$$ (typically real estate, management or finance). Eventually I left too.

[ChuckNorris89]

Out of curiosity if I may ask, in which country did this happen and to which profession did you move after?

[pydry]

Singapore. I'm still a software developer. Just not there.

It's ironic that the country had a serious case of silicon Valley envy and would try literally anything to clone some of that valley magic. They threw a lot of money around in pursuit of this goal.

They'd try anything, that is, other than decent, internationally competitive pay and working conditions.

[sireat]

Curious where did the money go then if it did not go into competitive salaries?

[pydry]

Grants for startups that were relocating from overseas, free office space for tech startups, grants for various kind of tech company masquerading as hot startups and funding for programming courses to train up more programmers.

If you ask a lot of tech founders what they really want the answer is usually going to be free money, free stuff or cheaper programmers. That's what the Singapore government attempted to deliver.

[redis_mlc]

Canada, Japan and Singapore are notorious for just refusing to pay competitive salaries for programmers.

I have a feeling it started off as lack of appreciation for software, then turned into intransigence at raising salaries since then "everybody would want a raise too."

The money goes to other parts of the business.