Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing talked about labour issues during a virtual doorstop interview with local media on Saturday, May 30.

In it, he talked about how it is not realistic for Singaporeans to replace foreign workers in the construction industry, as Singapore's labour pool is finite.

Chan also addressed the importance of trade for Singapore's survival.

Part of his interview though involved a rather interesting analogy.

Here is a clip on it.

The context of the clip was to show how much Singapore is reliant on trade from other countries.

This is because even though Singapore can produce some things domestically such as masks, it still relies on the many natural resources from other countries.

In his explanation regarding the production of three ply surgical masks, Chan discussed the various raw materials needed, such as cotton, polypropylene, and rubber bands.

However there was a slight error that some viewers spotted.

Cotton comes from the cotton plant, not sheep. Chan took the small misstep in stride, and used it as an opportunity to educate younger viewers.

Here is his Facebook post:

"I had a good laugh too when I was told that I spoke too fast in a video interview yesterday about cotton and sheep.

To any one (especially young children) watching the video - cotton definitely doesn’t come from sheep, it comes from cotton plants! 😊

In my mind, I have been thinking for weeks of all kinds of substitutes (including wool from sheep and other animals) that we can use for the various parts of the surgical masks that we produce here. Unfortunately in Singapore, we have neither cotton nor sheep.

Meanwhile, I should catch up on some sleep...CCS"

The limitation of Singaporean labour

In his virtual doorstop, Chan talked about how reducing reliance on foreign labour would require a concerted effort among other issues.

He also talked about the logistics of a Singaporean workforce in the construction industry.

Chan made the assumption that a Singaporean would be three times more productive than a foreign worker, meaning that these 300,000 foreign workers would need to be replaced by 100,000 Singaporeans, who will be paid three times as much as the current construction workers.

This would amount to 2,500 new workers per cohort needed to fuel the construction industry, assuming that every Singaporean works for 40 years during their lifetime, said Chan.

With roughly 33,000 babies born per year, this would mean that approximately 8 per cent of each Singaporean cohort will need to be recruited into the construction industry, a scenario that may not be realistic, according to Chan.

"So do you think you'll be able to recruit, at every cohort of Singaporean babies, say about 6 to 8 per cent of them into the construction industry, and assuming that they will be three times more productive than the foreign worker?" asked Chan.

He said that although some Singaporeans may be willing to enter the construction industry, most prefer a diversity of jobs, which would make relying purely on Singaporeans for the construction industry an unrealistic scenario.

You can read about the entire interview here: