My friend story. He went to SG for 12 years and earning about SGD 6k. It is decent money after convert to MYR. However he said if given a choice again he will not go SG and will stay in Msia. Due to high earning he bought a 800k house in Msia, 2 cars for family members and high insurance premium. He did save money however parents and siblings knew he earn more and keep asking support from him. Until today he still remain as single. His life in SG for these 12 years mostly office and room. He rarely go shopping during weekend as his intention is to earn and save money. He went overseas trip once or twice a year with friends as a reward to his hard work.

But now at age over 40 he afraid he might lose his job as senior account executive due to high pay low level. Company may anytime retrench him and replaced with cheaper junior executive. He did tried to apply Msia job and seeking RM 8k salary but none of the company can offer him more than RM 6k. He said if he were stay in Msia at his age now he should at least a teamlead or manager with earning around or above RM 8k. If not due to high currency rate he will not commit to expensive property and will not commit to buy 2 cars for family members.

There are many people will say please go or stay in SG purely because of high currency rate instead of career prospect. I have around 10 friends (Malaysian) working in SG with degree or some got MBA, none of them position in manager until today. A common problem of people who work in SG is over commitment that cause them extremely hard to come back to Msia.

Many people desire to go SG to earn big money but the truth is the earning mostly from exchange rate rather than high salary in SGD. I got other friends who worked in SG now and mostly in between SGD 5-7k and this is quite common. Only 1 friend salary more than SGD 10k because he was in US MNC while in Msia and then assigned to SG for regional role. These friends are in white collar industry and those who went SG for blue collar job their earning is about SGD 2 - 3.5k despite almost 20 years in SG.


People thought after working 10 years they may got chance to promote, yes from junior to senior but it is very hard to move up to management role even after 20 years in SG. It is because in SG there are people across Asia and some from Europe and US seeking career in SG.


In SG even if you were very hardworking but the opportunity is lesser to get promotion compare to Msia because there are many people work harder than us. In Msia if one is hardworking and serious about work it is easy to earn RM 4-5k before 30 and get promotion to earn RM 7-8k after age 35. Yes, this figure cannot compare to SGD even the blue collar job, but you are living together with your love one and enjoy your chill time with friends and family.

I am not sure about your detail but what I share is the real case from my friends. One of my friend share with me, SG is good to make money due to exchange rate but not career advancement. In MNC they are prioritize caucasian follow by local Singapoean. There are some Malaysian stay in SG for long time and they got SG citizenship only they got promoted.

Some Malaysian thought they got good opportunity in SG, what is the special skill we got? Multilingual is not a special skill in SG because in the country they are mostly converse in English meanwhile there are many people around the world joining. Japanese in SG can speak Japanese and English, Korean can speak Korean and English etc. Malaysian mostly speak Malay and English or Chinese can speak Mandarin and other dialect. But it is not so special in SG anymore.

Speaking about competancy, Malaysian stand no advantage over local SG and also people from HK, China, Japan, Korea etc in term of hardworking, critical thinking and education background. In SG when stepping in age of 40 it gonna face challenging of retrenchment, even the local SG afraid of retrenchment due to high salary low position.

In Msia one only need 50% of effort compare working in SG can easily step up to management role due to Malaysia laidback culture and hard to find good quality employee. Though salary lower than SG (due to exchange rate) in management role, but job security is much higher and most important thing can spend more time with friends and family. Most if not all Malaysian who went to SG end up over commitment till they cannot leave SG and back to Msia. My friend's bro work in downstream worker earning SGD 3.5k, he bought a RM 800k semi-D in southern of Klang Valley and 120k car. He usually come back once a month for weekend spend time with family. He enjoy working in SG and comeback once in a blue moon but after got family and kid he find it difficult due to long distance and wife suspected with depression problem as 2 years locked down my friend stucked in SG.

Bangla came Msia to work due to exchange rate and also there is almost no job opportunity in Bangladesh especially for professional job. But Malaysia there are thousands of professional jobs with reasonable salary but people choose to leave. Many said because of better paid in SG but it was merely due to exchange rate rather than career advancement. Many people see the good thing of going SG but very rare we seen people talk about the price they paid behind like sacrifice spending time with family, stuck in a position long time in SG, no friend to hangout in SG etc.