Netizens say Singaporeans work too many hours. Do they have a point?

Let's discuss that controversial Economist infographic. DISCLAIMER: THIS IS AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER EXCLUSIVE BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE WOKE SALARYMAN.

Late last year, a Reddit post featuring an infographic sparked a debate amongst Singaporeans about work-life balance and working culture here. 

The infographic measured the GDP per capita (money earned per person), then adjusted the value based on local cost of living and hours worked.

To sum it up, it tells us:

• Which countries have the highest average wealth per person

• How far that wealth goes in terms of buying goods and services in those countries

• For the hours worked, who is the wealthiest?

TL;DR, Singaporeans earn a lot of money, cost of living is not bad, but we are working too damn long with a shitty earnings rate 

You can see that some countries rank differently depending on which measure you look at. 

For example, Singapore might look very wealthy with just GDP per capita. After accounting for the cost of living alone, Singapore actually jumps to 2nd place, which is not bad at all. 

But here’s the thing: After taking into account the hours worked, Singapore falls all the way down to 15th place. 

(If it’s any consolation, Australia, Canada, and Israel fell off the chart completely, never to be seen again in the top 20. So Singaporeans are in a better position somewhat, since our GDP is able to support our cost of living decently well.)

Pretty dramatic. Which is why many people started asking… 

“Are Singaporeans working too long hours?”

Here’s the popular conclusion we’ve seen a lot online: Singaporeans need to work less hours, like the Belgians, Danish, and Germans.  

Our perspective is slightly different.

We looked at the chart and wondered:

Why do we produce such relatively low levels of wealth (GDP) for the long hours we work? We’re sacrificing A LOT of time to earn our salaries. Which in turn, indicates terribly low productivity. (Productivity = Output/Time spent)

We think there are two angles to examine this from: workplace culture and the value of the work we create.

Workplace culture: Working long hours =/= working

As it turns out, Singapore ranks third globally in percentage of time spent on “performative work”. 

That’s time spent on appearing busy (such as attending pointless meetings) instead of doing productive work. This also includes: taking smoke breaks, going for long lunches, using company time to book your next trip to Kyoto. 

As many would say, many of us are just “moving our mouse” to keep our online status active.

Usually when this happens, it’s because of workplace culture – whether it’s your boss demanding all your hours from 9am to 6pm, or colleagues pressuring you to join after-work events when you don’t really want to.

That said, it’s hard to change culture overnight.

We need the next generation of bosses to be more open about different working styles, and understand that more time in the office doesn’t equate to higher productivity. 

As workers, we need to spend less time ‘acting busy’ and more on deep, focused work. Quality over quantity. That’s the way to go. 

The value of our work: Where are we on the value chain?

It’s also not about how many hours you work, but the value – yes, in numerical figures – of your work.

Consider this example:

Person A works 12 hours a day to make their company $50,000 a month. Person B works 8 hours a day to earn their company the same amount.

Who’d make more money in the long run? We’re willing to bet on Person B. 

That said, in order to work less hours, but still maintain the wealth levels we have, we need to improve our skills, so we can earn more money per hour. Or in the words of President Tharman, increase our productivity. 

How do we do that? Easy. We need to use technology to work on tedious, repetitive or lower value jobs. Singaporeans then need to focus on complex, creative work that cannot be done by automation, or lower cost foreign labour.

If ChatGPT can do your job, then you need to upskill. 

If a remote worker in a developing country can do your job, then you also need to upskill as well.

We need to be doing the work that the highest-earning Americans, Swiss, Germans and Europeans are doing if we want to work less and still remain at current wealth levels.

Further reading: Why Singapore needs to move up the value chain

Is this anything new? Not really

There’s a reason why Singapore tried to fix this with the less-than-successful PIC (Productivity and Innovation) Grant from 2010-2018, and set up SkillsFuture in 2016 in an attempt to make Singaporeans upskill.

Is it working? 

Well, let’s just say that the road is long, and it’s too early to tell. It also requires everyone to make an effort – if employers refuse to change workplace culture and adopt new technology, not much change is gonna happen. 

There’s one thing the average employee can work on right this instance though:

If you’re a corporate warrior reading this after 6pm, resist the urge to OT if it’s not necessary.

Yes, you will have to forgo your meal allowance. And maybe you’ll have to take the MRT home instead of claiming for that Grab ride.

Hey, it’s one small step for you. But it’ll be one huge step for Singapore.

Stay woke, salaryman.

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