In his May Day Rally speech today (May 1), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that Singaporeans should be as hungry as a China foreign worker or their cheese will be stolen:
“A visit by unionists to a few factories in Chengdu (China) saw the Chinese workers doing online learning at night after work in their dormitories. Unless we are as hungry and determined as them…I think our cheese will be stolen.”
In his speech held at Tampines Hub, PM Lee Hsien Loong refused to acknowledge responsibility for the ailing economy and instead blamed “structuring” for the increase in unemployment rate. The son of Lee Kuan Yew then dismissed the rising unemployment rate problem blaming the aging population, saying that other developed countries have unemployment rate as high as 10%:
“The unemployment rate has climbed to 2.3 per cent due to economic re-structuring. This is low compared to developed countries, which have typically much higher unemployment rates of at least 5 per cent, and sometimes even as high as 10 per cent. Our unemployment rate will gradually tend to creep up. We are feeling the same pressures as other developed countries, the industries have to continue restructuring. Our workforce is getting older, and older workers who lose jobs tend to take longer to find new jobs, and to get back into the workforce.”