my thoughts on the “hungry lady”
can’t be bothered to remember the full name. truthfully i never saw the full podcast, only that excerpt circulating on tiktok.
tbh before her age was revealed, i already guesstimated her age to be around mid 40s-50 and i wasn’t too far off. not because of how she looks, but because of the way she speaks, mainly her tone. she reminded me of a couple of bosses i worked with prior, around this age group, where they think they are speaking hard truths, but get offended when you return the same energy. when you leave to pursue better opportunities, they feel insulted at the fact that you don’t consider your current job a “great opportunity”.
reality is, looking at the stats, that age group has lesser people who are higher educated compared to now. i assume she graduated around 2006-2007, and the average % of uni grads is about 25% vs 2025, which was around 53%. which means that in her era every 1 in 4 people had a degree, whereas now it’s 1 in every 2 people. as long as you had a degree back then, you were probably granted a decent, well-paying job with decent benefits. most people in this age group also don’t jump much, so by the time they hit 40-50, they are at a senior position solely based on experience, regardless of how good/ bad they are. ignoring all global events, there are just more educated people today than 20 years ago. it’s just more competitive now.
idk what cross border hiring was like back then, but it’s definitely more accessible now. if i’m from across the border, and 5k suddenly become 15k, of course i will do anything and everything to get the job. but companies aren’t paying us 15k, are they? even the once “iron rice bowl” jobs now hire solely based on contracts. it promotes brain drain actually, because if you’re the best and brightest in sg, why would limit yourself to just opportunities here, when there are so many opportunities out there that could give you better resources,networks and pay better?
most of us in sg are just trying to beat inflation, COL, and maybe afford a weekly reduced sugar bbt.
it’s not that singaporeans aren’t hungry, it’s just each time we try to catch a chicken, the chicken seems to run faster, and even fly up into the tree to hide from us.
hungry lady if you happen to read this, idk what you expected tbh. job searching and unemployment are sensitive topics, and have always been so. sensitive topics.. should be handled with sensitivity. maybe consider getting a PR agency to assist with damage control….