Two days ago, Singapore’s flagship daily, “The Straits Times,” ran an article about a survey conducted by the Centre for Governance and Stability (CGS) and the National University of Singapore (NUS), which found that companies which loaded senior positions with people over a certain age, under-performed. The article can be found at:
Let’s start with the obvious. The one organization that
is has people in senior management over the age of 60 is the government itself.
The Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong is 70 and there has yet set a date for his
departure from the top job. His official deputy, Mr. Heng Swee Kiat is 61 and
has stated that he will not be taking the top job because he felt that he’d be
too old by the time he was supposed to sit in the hot seat. The two senior
ministers (or the actual second in commands) Mr. Teo Chee Hean and Mr. Tharman
Shanmugaratnam are 67 and 64 respectively. If you were to look the three expected
contenders for Prime Minister, you’ll find that two (Mr. Ong Ye Kung and Mr.
Chan Chun Seng) are already over 50, whilst the only under 50 is already 49.
Our Prime Minister has a track record of being
generous to people over 60. In his early years, he kept two of his successors
in cabinet. Mr. Goh, who was senior minister had a cushy retirement job from
the age of 63 all the way to age 70. On a more prominent note, there was the
late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew who was 81 in 2004 and 88 when he stepped down as
Minister Mentor.
Being over 60 has never been a problem when it comes
to holding a cabinet level post or a senior position in the management of the government
and given that the government in Singapore plays a very prominent role in
managing everything, one has to ask if the study conducted by CGS and NUS
included the government or was merely limited to a number of organizations.
There can only be two conclusions here. One, is that
if the government was not included in the study, it would be obvious that the
findings of the study are not really accurate. The other is that the government
doesn’t take the results of this study seriously enough to speed up a hand-over
to the younger generation of ministers as our 70-year-old Prime Minister and
his 60 plus—year-old assistants have a few good years left in them.
As a 47-year-old struggling who got rejected from a
security guard job, I prefer to think that it’s the second option. Despite the
ease in which the over 60s have in staying in management jobs when it comes to
cabinet post, the reality is rather different for Singapore’s ever-growing
number of aged Baby Boomers and aging Gen X-ers. The reality remains – after 45,
you are considered a dinosaur and despite your years of experience, getting even
the most menial of jobs becomes a challenge – even if the government encourages
old-folks to replace migrant labour in the service sector because our pension
money is only meant to be used by our next-of-kin to take care of funeral
expenses.
When you get told that there’s an age limit for a job,
you quickly learn that there’s a reason for it. Nobody thinks your brain works
fast enough for the modern world or that you’re too feeble to take the physical
demands of life. I believe that my personal work experience disproves this but
I and people of my generation need to accept the reality is that the system
doesn’t work that way. The CGS and NUS study seems to confirm the ageist
perceptions of the market.
Hence, its actually a relief that to see that whilst
the think-tanks may not think much of us over 45s in the market, our 70-year-old
Prime Minister clearly does not believe this study is worth too much attention
as he carries on working past retirement age in the most important managerial
role in Singapore.
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