How much are you earning per annum?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Oh, i will be from Tier 7 ? , abour 3 million people in my Tier, i am not alone.

Brief details:
single, 39 yr old
income - 28k per year (including bonuses)

I feel exactly the same as you. Earning just above 30K last year, I sometimes feel like work or dont work is the same. I might as well join the 2 million others (children, elderly, rich tai tais, and the unemployed) - the tier 8.

Wah,

Stupid MOM report, make me lose so much money:
http://www.mom.gov.sg/Documents/stat...sd_2011ROW.pdf

To think the report was soo convincing.. got so much data that makes it hard to fake leh.. But hor, the forum here got too much power people for me to doubt lah. Like, in report, the median for 1,492 MD/CEO were $16,684 only. 1,085 university lecturers earned median of $10,918. Of course not accurate lar.. just about 100,000 samples only what. Singapore got 5M population leh. So small sample size... Must tell them to sample from this forum instead, sure got more accurate value one.

Aiyah, all these while, I unpriced my cannons. Should have sold them at much higher since everyone earned so much..

Originally Posted by Big Cannon Fairy

Wah,

Stupid MOM report, make me lose so much money:
http://www.mom.gov.sg/Documents/stat...sd_2011ROW.pdf

To think the report was soo convincing.. got so much data that makes it hard to fake leh.. But hor, the forum here got too much power people for me to doubt lah. Like, in report, the median for 1,492 MD/CEO were $16,684 only. 1,085 university lecturers earned median of $10,918. Of course not accurate lar.. just about 100,000 samples only what. Singapore got 5M population leh. So small sample size... Must tell them to sample from this forum instead, sure got more accurate value one.

Aiyah, all these while, I unpriced my cannons. Should have sold them at much higher since everyone earned so much..

Understand your sarcasm and frustration, but do take note that MOM numbers will always appear to be severly underpriced because they only collect data based on self-reporting of job titles.

For e.g. MD/CEO when I submit infomration to the government, even if I am the founder of a 2-man shop company earning $3k, I will also be classified under MD/CEO category. This has the effect of dragging down the average by a lot.

If you want to know actual MD/CEO pay, a good reference is proxy disclosures on SGX. They tend to be 750k - 4,000k depending on the size of company.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Understand your sarcasm and frustration, but do take note that MOM numbers will always appear to be severly underpriced because they only collect data based on self-reporting of job titles.

For e.g. MD/CEO when I submit infomration to the government, even if I am the founder of a 2-man shop company earning $3k, I will also be classified under MD/CEO category. This has the effect of dragging down the average by a lot.

If you want to know actual MD/CEO pay, a good reference is proxy disclosures on SGX. They tend to be 750k - 4,000k depending on the size of company.

1. There are only a few hundreds listed companies in SGX. Even if the above range 750k-4000k is correct, that only mean that a few hundreds individuals will be drawing this kind of compensation which is possible.

2. Here, we are talking about median salary (and 25 percentile and 75 percentile) from MOM, not average. Salary goes exponentially higher as one get into the top percentile but it is not common and rare. In other words, I am saying that it is true that the top 1-3% maybe drawing salary annual compensation in the hundreds of thousands to millions dollars but that won't change the fact that the median salary is what reflected in the MOM report.

3. The government do have data of personal income from the tax they are collecting. Those that evade tax successfully don't represent a big percentage in Singapore.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

1. There are only a few hundreds listed companies in SGX. Even if the above range 750k-4000k is correct, that only mean that a few hundreds individuals will be drawing this kind of compensation which is possible.

2. Here, we are talking about median salary (and 25 percentile and 75 percentile) from MOM, not average. Salary goes exponentially higher as one get into the top percentile but it is not common and rare. In other words, I am saying that it is true that the top 1-3% maybe drawing salary annual compensation in the hundreds of thousands to millions dollars but that won't change the fact that the median salary is what reflected in the MOM report.

3. The government do have data of personal income from the tax they are collecting. Those that evade tax successfully don't represent a big percentage in Singapore.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the govenrment's information discernation process. Whether it is by percentile or by average is not the crux of the issue here, neither is income data integrity the main problem here. The government has good income and pay numbers I assume by virtue of their extensive database.

The weak link comes from the categorisation of people's income based on self-reporting. If you participated in a DOS or MOM survey before, you will realise they basically just ask you to declare your job title with little diligence to find out just what exactly is your job about.

To take the example of your CEO/MD cateogrisation, any entrepreuner of a company no matter how small it is, is technically not wrong to state that he is MD. Most start ups and small local company MDs do not pay themselves >$10k. These huge number of data points will invariably drag down the whole sample set, it doesn't matter if it is by percentile or by average.

There is also another tricky problem here, which is the wide spread inflation of job titles. When people talk about CEO, most of the time it is obvious they are referring to head honchos of large companies. Yet the title itself is so ambiguous and subject to self-interpretation that many Country Managers, GMs, Start up Boss refer to themselves as CEO.

This creates an incongruence between what sits in the back of people's mind when they speak of "CEO" and the namecard interpretation of "CEO". This same problem will appear in almost all other jobs. For e.g. a wife assisting her husband in accounting for a small start up is technically not wrong to call herself CFO, but that will eventually get captured under CFO/Finance Director as well.

To be fair to government agencies, it is not realistic to expect them to conduct detailed deligence to scope out each and every sample as providing salary data is not their main function, this is the job of HR Mangement consultancies. What it does bring to us is that we have to understand their methodology and interpret any conclusions with these short comings in mind.

Aiyah, I was right, this forum really got damn powderful people siah.... So many CEO/MD/President/Directors/VP and don't know what else lar. I'm right to build my clientele here - no where in Singapore, and some say Asia and Europe, hor, can I find so many top earners. Like, in the report, so confusing, they have CEO/MD, GM, Directors, and some more broken them into don't know one or two hundreds of categories. No wonder people never even read properly... Damn confusing, don't know how to put their salary.

Probably hor, they anyhow humtum and divided their salary. After all, I also Director in fingers+toes also cannot count number of companies. How to declare which company I earning from when they only do one survey every year for past don't know how many years only. Stocks from Ballistics suppliers already don't know how many billions liao, but all I never declare.. just like those smart-aleck who declare $100K's salary in forum only.

Seriously, must tell MOM and IRAS to visit this forum more... then garment can declare that Cost of Living is ok what.. very reasonable.. every people sooo happy..

Originally Posted by Big Cannon Fairy

Aiyah, I was right, this forum really got damn powderful people siah.... So many CEO/MD/President/Directors/VP and don't know what else lar. I'm right to build my clientele here - no where in Singapore, and some say Asia and Europe, hor, can I find so many top earners. Like, in the report, so confusing, they have CEO/MD, GM, Directors, and some more broken them into don't know one or two hundreds of categories. No wonder people never even read properly... Damn confusing, don't know how to put their salary.

Probably hor, they anyhow humtum and divided their salary. After all, I also Director in fingers+toes also cannot count number of companies. How to declare which company I earning from when they only do one survey every year for past don't know how many years only. Stocks from Ballistics suppliers already don't know how many billions liao, but all I never declare.. just like those smart-aleck who declare $100K's salary in forum only.

Seriously, must tell MOM and IRAS to visit this forum more... then garment can declare that Cost of Living is ok what.. very reasonable.. every people sooo happy..

Agreed. - CEO of HDB mama tiam

Originally Posted by Big Cannon Fairy

Aiyah, I was right, this forum really got damn powderful people siah.... So many CEO/MD/President/Directors/VP and don't know what else lar. I'm right to build my clientele here - no where in Singapore, and some say Asia and Europe, hor, can I find so many top earners. Like, in the report, so confusing, they have CEO/MD, GM, Directors, and some more broken them into don't know one or two hundreds of categories. No wonder people never even read properly... Damn confusing, don't know how to put their salary.

Probably hor, they anyhow humtum and divided their salary. After all, I also Director in fingers+toes also cannot count number of companies. How to declare which company I earning from when they only do one survey every year for past don't know how many years only. Stocks from Ballistics suppliers already don't know how many billions liao, but all I never declare.. just like those smart-aleck who declare $100K's salary in forum only.

Seriously, must tell MOM and IRAS to visit this forum more... then garment can declare that Cost of Living is ok what.. very reasonable.. every people sooo happy..

It's about the desire to understand things deeper and in more detailed and professional level.

I have tried to engage you seriously by elaborating on the government's methodolgy and its resulting limitations in presenting pay data. You on the other hand seem more interested in making juvenile cynical and sarcastic remarks without addressing much.

No matter, I hope it will benefit many lurkers and readers out there who are reading but might not have posted anything.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It's about the desire to understand things deeper and in more detailed and professional level.

I have tried to engage you seriously by elaborating on the government's methodolgy and its resulting limitations in presenting pay data. You on the other hand seem more interested in making juvenile cynical and sarcastic remarks without addressing much.

No matter, I hope it will benefit many lurkers and readers out there who are reading but might not have posted anything.

dun be silly, nobody is here to discuss things seriously

most peeps here are just jobless bums, lobo jr civil servant or school kids here to talk c.ock sing song lah

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It's about the desire to understand things deeper and in more detailed and professional level.

I have tried to engage you seriously by elaborating on the government's methodolgy and its resulting limitations in presenting pay data. You on the other hand seem more interested in making juvenile cynical and sarcastic remarks without addressing much.

No matter, I hope it will benefit many lurkers and readers out there who are reading but might not have posted anything.

So unlike you, I cannot share too much about how statistics are collected lar.. My bad.

But hor,

1. Self employed are not part of the statistics. This is employees' salary minus employer contribution. Which means, people like Kopi-Tiam CEO don't get to participate lor. Again, no wonder very so slewed and low.

2. Statistics are actually grouped into establishment with 25 to 199 employees and those above 200. Of course not accurate lar. I got 24 employee and make billions and pays my employee millions but we all not in the statistics leh.

3. Inflation of titles - Aiyah, like prices like that right? I understand... But hor, I don't how lecturers can be mislabeled or how come so few MD/CEO leh. Also hor, the estimated standard deviation from the median, 25 and 75 percentile don't seem that wide spread leh. Why har? Cher always give me D for maths, so I can't understand...