Nine in 10 new jobs in Singapore go to citizens and permanent residents, acting Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen said in rebuttal to a university study saying foreigners took 75 per cent of new jobs, the Straits Times reported - Singapore - Brief Article

Business Asia, August, 2003

Nine in 10 new jobs in Singapore go to citizens and permanent residents, acting Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen said in rebuttal to a university study saying foreigners took 75 per cent of new jobs, the Straits Times reported. Ng referred to the study by economists at Nanyang Technological University as "sensationalist, irresponsible and unprofessional", the paper reported, citing a meeting he held with reporters.

The economists, Chen Kang and Tan Khee Giap, replied with a written statement saying they based their study on publicly available figures from the ministry's website, the paper said. The Ministry said its conclusion that 90 per cent of new jobs in the last five years were filled by locals was based on classified data, the paper reported. It said the economists were wrong to rely on Labor Force Survey data that didn't include construction workers living on worksites and workers who commute daily from Malaysia, the paper reported.