As a society's economy progresses, the main contributor it's GDP evolves from agriculture to manufacturing and on to services. This is evident in most modern developed economies i.e London and the US, just look at their makeup of GDP over the years. China is in her manufacturing phase now. Singapore never really had an agricultural phase but had a strong manufacturing phase. However, it's time for the economy to expand in services for it to advance. Engineers sadly belong to the manufacturing era.. just like farmers used to belong to the agricultural phase.. that's why the service industry is paying so much better than the manufacturing sector. This is why it's hard for engineers to be paid more than service ppl i.e bankers or sales ppl, just as it's harder for a salaried farmer to be paid more than an engineer.
Evolve with time or be obsolete..