Am I expected to negotiate on offers?

[entropy]

Is it expected in Singapore that the employment offer will be negotiated before a final agreement is reached?

I have an offer from a government research institute - senior Ph.D. position with >10 years of experience. Should I be making a counter offer, or do you expect that their first position is final?

I'm very excited about the opportunity, but a little daunted by the cost of living in Singapore and don't want to leave money on the table.

[sundaymorningstaple]

All things are negotiable. It depends on how badly you want the position. What might be short for your might be surplus for another. Only you can make that assessment and negotiating is a risk you have to factor in. With the market coming up again, one would think it would be possible, but with the current backlash against foreigners, one might remain mindful of that as well.

The odds are, that if it's a government position, it will be non-negotiable.

[peterson76]

that's an easy answer
ALWAYS

[Sparkss]

but with the current backlash against foreigners

SMS, I have read that comment, or something similar, in several posts now. Could you elaborate a little ? Is it just the government ? or the populace as a whole ? I did a search and didn't find any more detail, but if you have a link you could provide I will read up myself. TIA.

[sundaymorningstaple]

It's the government's reaction to the whinges of the local population . The government is due for an election by, I believe, February 2012. However, historically elections have been called within 6 months of having the Electorial Boundaries redrawn. (Done recently). Therefore, in order to appease the local populace, who have been through several recessions since 1997, they see now that one of every 4 persons on this island is a foreigner. As there are still a lot of them unemployed and the government is still bringing them in (foreigners) the locals are screaming foul! So, in order to NOT have the locals complain with their votes and possibly causing election problems, the government has decided to cater to their grouses. So, with effect of Sept last year, MOM and ICA has started tightening down on foreign worker and PR applications and also withdrawing or reducing a number of PR benefits as well. They have also made quota changes for foreign workers and tightened up on the EntrePass and other types of Entry visas here. We reckon this will continue until some time after the election, once the PAP as been returned to power.

It's been in the local daily newspapers for the past year. It's been on TV on CNA several times. One, BlogTV, I was actually invited to be a member of the panel for one of the episodes late last year (via this forum) regarding the perceived "benefits" that PR's get versus Citizens - just as an example. I believe Mad Scientist posted a bit of dialog from one of the Ministers or PM regarding same, here in one of the threads in the past couple of days (on of the NS threads I believe). You can go to the main newspaper's online site and search their archives and eventually you will find articles but the easiest way is to just read the daily papers.

sms

[Sparkss]

Thanks SMS. I had found most of the high level info in other posts, but no where near the level that you just provided.

I am not yet located in Singapore, so reading the local papers is not an option. Sorry to ask such a newb question, but what is the main newspaper (so I can search for it's online site) ? I will search for posts by Mad Scientist for the past week to see if I can find those dialog posts you mentioned. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[sundaymorningstaple]

http://forum.singaporeexpats.com/ftopic45505.html

Due to some legal issues a couple years ago we can no longer mention or link or copy & past anything from any of that groups various entities in the forum......

I refer to it as the local daily birdcage liner.....

[Nath21]

In my short experience of non-government organisations here salaries are totally negotiable and they try to low ball you because HR here cant be bothered pricing your salary / cant even if they tried due to the small size of the market and speciailities of certain jobs and probably the biggest reason (and it happens everywhere) is that HR sees itself as a Gatekeeper not a service provider to the business.

My own experience when I applied for the job here I agreed to a salary at interview with the budget owner and HR came over the top and offered me $30k less without notifying the budget holder saying it was market but the job was unfilled for 18 months here. I walked away and my boss rang me and asked why. Needless to say he was pissed off. Later when my boss got another call and got called in by the HR director over a authorised cab ride for one of his staff (young lady) working late that started at 9.59pm (the guide is that only fares starting past 10pm can be authorised), he completely lost it and the HR director is now working somewhere else. Morale of the story for your situation is that work out who's holidng the keys, the budget owner or HR. In government jobs, jobs are usually bandwithed in a small range anyway so the negotiation is sometimes not worth the time. SMS do they do that here in SG? If they do you might be able to find the range that level provides so you can negotitate.