erm... y compare only with engineer?

Well... because Engineer's salaries serves as easy benchmarks for low salary in Singapore... Sad but true.. That's how pathetic engineers are perceived by other professions.. BTW congrats to those graduating engineering students.. you'll be in for surprise when you step into the world of engineering!!!

Well, it doesn't make sense to peg civil service pay only to the lower percentile of the salary of 1 class of occupation. If PSD were to do this, civil service will be full of engineers... all others would not even think about joining CS unless they dun mind getting a pay cut to enjoy work life balance or to settle for a less stressful & stable environment... I believe this is not what PSD will like to see.

I think it will be fairer to peg the salary of CS to a basket of occupation as benchmark... which I believe it is the case now. definitely our salaries are not pegged to the top 5 occupations if not we will be having minister/AO's pay. haha...

For Minister's salary.. they will of course pegged to the top income earners in Singapore... Obvious since they are the ones who are approving the benchmarking for themselves..

For the typical salary for civil servants at the bottom, they always seems to pegged you to the lowest possible minimum wages of similar profession they can find.. they then spend some money to engage HR consultants to justify & convince you that you're getting a fair deal.. Some even say things like if you're not happy, the door is open.. Well, for people looking to join the civil service... don't expect big increments or to get rich in here.. You will just get by with the rising cost of living..

Try to become a minister then.

Going by your logic workers will be abandoning civil service en masse since they benchmark to the lowest possible wage...

If you guys remembered, recently Tan Jin Chuan increased the salary of VWO workers to attract more ppl.... if civil service really pegs salary to the lowest salary group like engineers, then sad to sad PSD will only be able to attract engineers and ppl earning even lesser (eg. cleaner, bus drivers, taxi drivers...). So does this make sense to that guy/lady who insisted in that? It doesn't make sense to me at all..

from what I have seen,

An average engineer in private sector Vs An average civil servant

The average civil servant are more likely to hit 4.5k-5k salary after working for 5 years in their 1st job as a civil servant. While the average engineer in private sector only get between 3.8k-4.2k after 5 years in their 1st job as an engineer.

Private sector are subjected to FT because they are cheaper, boss may sack/retrench you for economic reasons/reservist/RT/female pregnant...etc..as far as I know, private sector seldom give wage adjustment upward every 3-5 years....Highly chance no work-life balance.

Civil service/public sector, got work-life balance, stable job, support NS, support pregnancy, every 3-5 years got salary adjustment...NO FT !! Also can + NS allowance to male...good increment compared to those lousy engineering private job!!!

Civil service is for those who can speak and write good English and are more risk adverse, and very tolerant of red tape (can follow rules). Advantages: v stable job, supportive of family life, relatively regular hours (though not necessarily cushy, many OT nowadays and work v hard too) 5K in 5 yrs is definitely achievable. Much less FT. But once inside for a few years, quite stuck, skills are probably not transferable.

Private sector: for the more ambitious risk takers. But there is a chance to make much much more money, job hop.

Depends on what u want in life ....

Things will not get any better in the private sector.... With the aggressive import of highly skilled FT... the Singaporean better make sure their skill-set and experience can rival against those elite FT imports.. If not, better join civil service..
Now alot of the FT come in more educated than you, smarter, cheaper and younger than you.. Do you think private employers would really care whether he is singapore citizen anot?? Employers naturally go for the cheaper and better....... I see that happening in banking alot, the FT from india comes in with their multiple masters degrees and MBAs... Singaporean end up have to report to the FT as their bosses.. got seen some cases, they try to make you quit and then they try to recruit someone of their own nationality into their department to strengthen their presence ...