When pasture greener

WHEN I joined my company, there was only one fellow citizen at office. After four years on, there has been increase the number of my compatriot to 5, 4 QS and 1 Engineer. It is nice to have small Myanmar community within office as we could chat something in common during working time. Fortunately, we all are placed side by side desks to make it group. Don't know it is happening by accident or deliberate effort. Only senior management will know. Anyway, it is good sign of recognition for our hard working attitude. Partly, it's due to ever expanding works through successful projects. There is one site manager who is Myanmar but holding Singapore passport. He has been working here for more than 14 years and treated as a leader of Burmese immigrant workers on site. As a part of his duty, he also need to help HR recruit new Myanmar workers.

This week, he is sharing his experience on finding new Myanmar workers. He said, our company is trying to recruit 30 Myanmar workers at site for incoming projects. But, nowadays it is not as easy as before to get required workers at the right time. Upon his giving up, HR tried to contact agent and find the same experience. The senior management is surprising on the rare exposure of Myanmar workers here. The Singaporean Myanmar man tried to find cause and explained his finding. Today, young Myanmar worker's destination has been changed to Korea over lion city. Because they could get as high as 10 lakhs by working in Korea republic which is as double as they could earn in lion city. No wonder they all go there as Korea industrial doesn't need special skills like Singapore does. Anyway, it is good for Myanmar workers as company appreciate our effort. Our workers are widely accepted that less troublesome and highly adaptable new working environment compare to their counterparts from other countries. In fact, HR could easily find new recruit from India and Bangladesh. But bosses don't like to hire them from experience. Finally, they realize the situation and allow to recruit some workers from South Asian workers.

I am sure, this trend will not return to previous stage since Myanmar starts open up its economy now. It is obvious that there would be more jobs coming in the pipeline through foreign direct investment in near future. It will block our young professional going oversea. At the same time, greener pasture will attract those who are already working in foreign lands return home sooner or later. The situation is changing in momentum and we  all hope that returning home is not far from now.