The golden era of aviation have ended. With all 4 poly & Uni providing avaition course, the amount of ppl joining aviation maintenence have increased thru out the years, leading to a suppress in the salary compensation. Most of Sg avaition related industries deal in maintenance, not usually in R&D as compared to OEM,USA or europe. so usually graduates end up in the main 3 companies ST, SIA and SIAEC... etc. old bird(10 to 15 years ago) have enjoyed the payscale system when the can clock over time and boost their salary and cpf contribution MAX asa they pass out as a lae. Nowaday, to pass out is hard and to have a decent salary and OT is even harder. OT start to capped. increment as per national standard 1.5% to 2%. As new ppl join in, the salary is been depressed, as the higher paid Old bird is still been employed. End of the day, its cost management. some companies even employ other country technician/lae which lower the cost further. 1 of the reason, sg still employing sg ppl is due to the local employees headcount if given a choice, all technicians and lae will be from other cheaper countries, meanwhile just feeding all those old bird lae till they retire...