Albano Martins
The scarcity of human resources in Macau is an irrefutable fact. No one doubts this, even the most aggressive populist, those guys that always try to ignore the facts that are as clear as daylight.
Of the three traditional factors of production, Macao has no land, has abundant or almost endless financial resources for its small size, and has no manpower to fuel anything, not even the businesses that have only meager staffing requirements.
In any part of the world, this would be considered an explosive combination capable of generating much more inflation than the official numbers reported by the authorities may suggest.
It is necessary to find intelligent solutions for this great and serious problem. The encouragement to solve this bottleneck in the economy and the community in a delicate and intelligent way – whenever such a will can be discerned, and it is not always so – does not seem, however, to interest many local people, convinced that Macao and its economy should be reserved for them.
As non-resident workers are treated here in a rather less generous way so to be simply sympathetic to the locals, the magic formula to solve the lack of manpower is to put in active service again those who should have already been enjoying the company of their grandchildren for some years or enjoying the rest of their lives in a peaceful environment.
That is, we must feed the economy by using and reusing the resources available: the old people! In stark terms, force the elderly to work again, because society does not support them with enough income for the last years of their lives!
And that’s what we are seeing already, old people serving tables in restaurants, many already bowed by age, harsh conditions of life and past work: a total lack of solidarity with the older generations, the result of unprecedented selfishness!
The paladins of this magic formula should think about the social and economic implications for society of this decision, one which I find shameful, to have people die working in a land where the Government has full coffers, yet the distribution of income is extremely unequal.
The whole truth is that what many defenders of this formula do not want are for non-resident workers to work on their land – not only foreigners, but even their own nationals!
The Macau concept of patriotism!
Curiously, many of them came from the Mother Land itself, or are directly descended from those who came from mainland China. This is called xenophobia!
Alone, with only locals, this economy would not have multiplied and would not have generated enough jobs for locals. Note that during the Portuguese Administration the unemployment rate was almost six to seven percent!
Our locals are still betting on myopia. Thus, Macau will never be able to compete with any place, not far or near, in this Great Bay, where audacity and intelligence overlap in this incessant struggle for life, for greater productivity and, of course, for competitiveness!
A Portuguese professor in the creative industries, in referring to Portugal, was saying a few days ago that there are capable people and a virtual army reserve behind them waiting for employment in that field. The teacher also mentioned that there are “extraordinary” conditions in Macau to make this a dynamic industry. I am sure of this.
I take the liberty now to confirm that this is true but there is a detail that he probably does not know: Macau is not in the situation to naturally build an industry capable of having any impact on its GDP. The reason is simple, it does not have enough creative local man-power, nor does it allow others to occupy these vacant roles.
There are no statistical data available on the impact of this activity on GDP or GVA, but we would say that it is ridiculously residual. It would not be one thousandth of GDP or GVA!
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