Dr Chee Soon Juan's article on Huffington Post: Singapore - The next 50 years

Singapore celebrates 50 years of independence this year. In that half-a-century, the country has made significant progress especially on the economic front.

In the past, the economic prowess of the country was attributed to a highly disciplined workforce, aided by a populace that (purportedly) preferred economic growth over democratic rights, and enabled by a no-nonsense, autocratic style of governance. Ironically, such a regimented approach is undoing much of what has been accomplished.

Take the case of labor productivity whose levels have been languishing for the past decade, hovering at around 0%. And because wages must increase in tandem with productivity growth, income levels remained largely stagnant.

A workforce driven to working harder and harder at un-progressive wage levels will result in diminished happiness and, consequently, productivity. A survey conducted by the Randstad Group in 2014 showed that Singaporean workers were the least happy in Asia. One of the reasons the respondents cited for the unhappiness was working harder for less.

The Singapore government acknowledges the severity of the productivity problem. But instead of drawing up viable solutions, it resorted to importing large numbers of foreign workers in the hope that they would boost falling productivity and competitiveness so that the economy would remain attractive to investors from around the world. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong admitted as much when he said in 2011 that "Without the foreign workers, we would not have attracted [investments]."