Why Don’t Singaporean Teens Get Part-Time Jobs?

At dinner this weekend a Singaporean friend asked, “What’s the biggest difference you see between Singapore and the US?” Without even thinking about it, I said “”Singaporean teens don’t get part-time jobs.”

I was thinking about this recently because I actually DID meet a local teen working at a coffee shop, and it seemed so unusual that it stuck with me. In the US it is common for teens to take on “formal” customer service jobs — such as working in F&B, retail, delivering newspapers, that sort of thing — or more “freelance” style work, like babysitting, mowing yards or shoveling snow in their neighborhood. They may do it part-time during the school year, or perhaps full-time during school holidays. (As a point of comparison, 34% of Americans age 15-19 are in the labor force, while 12% of Singaporeans in that age group are)

But in Singapore, I have noticed very little of that. In retail shops and restaurants, for example, I see a lot more grandmothers than teenagers (41% of Singaporeans age 65-69 are in the labor force), and LOTS of foreign workers. Even at the university here where I used to teach, I did not notice a lot of students working behind the counter at the canteen, or in the bookstore. Where are the local teens?

I realize part of it may be lack of demand. With most people living in HDBs, yard work is not necessary, and if we ever need to shovel snow here then we have bigger things to worry about than teen employment. Babysitting is not seen as necessary, with families relying on live-in helpers, grandparents, or just taking their toddler to the restaurant where they can run around and bother other people.

I wonder, though, if there is also an issue of supply. Do teens simply not want to take jobs? Do parents not want them to get jobs? In talks with clients around Singapore they have suggested that parents want their kids to only focus on school, not on jobs. But in doing so, I honestly think they are hurting their kids.

Why? Because getting a job when you are younger is a great learning experience, and it teaches you about living in the real world so you can better apply all that stuff you get in the classroom. You learn to work with others, you learn about the responsibility of being on time and putting effort into your work, you learn to budget your personal spending relative to your income and, perhaps most importantly, you learn that the world does not revolve around you. The impression I have gotten is that, for many Singaporeans, the first time they learn these things is in their first job out of school. It’s funny, because the clients I have worked with have often been very critical of the youngest generation of workers, yet I have to think that it’s today’s business leaders who may be to blame because they are also the parents who are not preparing their kids for the real world.

I also think that taking on a customer service job earlier in life would help reduce the ongoing tension between customers and service workers. There seems to be an almost hostile relationship between diners and wait staff, or shop customers and retail assistants. I know from experience how working in the service industry can change your perspective. Having worked in retail, I try to always talk with shop staff with a smile, because I know how tough it is to deal with grumpy customers. Having worked as a hotel housekeeper one summer while in university, I can tell you that during my extensive business travel my room probably creates the least work for the housekeeping staff. Perhaps if more professionals here had worked behind a counter at some point in their lives, the customer-service staff relationship would be better and service quality overall would improve.

So yes, I am very curious why we see so few Singaporean teens with part-time or summer jobs. There may be some very good reasons, and I would like to learn what those are. There may also be some very bad reasons, and I hope to learn about those too. Whatever the reason, when people ask me about the differences between Singapore and the US this will always be my default answer.