Employers should appreciate NS as a plus

THE results of a survey by the Institute of Policy Studies on National Service (NS) in Singapore released this week showed some worrying trends, especially when it came to the perceptions of respondents on employers' attitudes towards NS obligations.

While as many as 89 per cent of employed national servicemen (NSmen) who responded said employers were generally supportive of NS commitments, nearly half of the respondents believed that having such commitments could work against them when it came to finding jobs. A total of 42.1 per cent of the employed NSmen who participated in the survey said they either "slightly agreed", "agreed" or "strongly agreed", when asked if they believed that their employers preferred to hire employees without NS commitments.

These results suggest that a significant proportion of NSmen believe that employers are prejudiced against their NS commitments, which may keep them away from work periodically. The validity of this perception can probably only be ascertained anecdotally, but as the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. If there are employers out there who indeed feel this way about hiring personnel with NS commitments, then something must be done to correct this attitude. NS is not only a key pillar of Singapore's "total defence" strategy, it also provides an integral platform for social cohesion and nation-building as well as character-building. Its value to society should not be underestimated, or diluted.