the opportunity cost of ns

Some time ago I attended a talk by an officer from the Ministry of Manpower. It was a report card on our current manpower situation - employment and unemployment rates within different industries, the efforts to draw in foreign talent and the implementation of workfare efforts. In the midst of this, he commented how many poly students with diplomas in IT or digital media design find their education obsoleted after their 2-year stint in NS. That got me thinking.

We all know there are urgent and pressing needs for national service, as it provides the deterrence and security that allows a peaceful military and political environment and a conducive climate for business. But just out of curiousity, what is the true opportunity cost to individuals and the economy of 2 years of full-time national service and at least 10 years of in-camp training?

• 'A'-level students often complain of how the 2 years in NS makes them stupid, and how they have to struggle in university to catch up with their female counterparts who are fresh from JC. What more the polytechnic students who have to find jobs upon their ORD? Many of them would have forgotten much of what they learned. Others in the fast-moving IT fields would find that whatever they learned has already been overtaken by newer and more powerful versions of the software. To make themselves employable, they have to go into retraining again!
• Singaporean employers have commented (both in the forum as well as in personal conversations) how tempting it is to employ PRs and foreign talent over Singapore citizens, simply because their productivity is not interrupted by the compulsory stints of up to a month of NS each year. Their patriotism in choosing to employ citizens imposes a cost as project deadlines are delayed awaiting the return of these people.
• And of course, there are the Singaporean citizens themselves who may be passed over for employment because of their national service liabilities. After all, not all employers are that patriotic.
• On the macroeconomic scale, there is also the lost productivity if you add up all the weeks and months of national service training done each year, taking people away from their regular jobs.
• An additional cost to the economy is that these people are still paid wages equivalent to what they would usually draw, often to do nothing but sit around and wait. Imagine a high-flying lawyer may be called back to perform his role as a rifleman or clerk, and spend most of his time just waiting around or eating in the canteen. Your taxes are paying for his idyll. (And yet, he isn't particularly happy about it either because back home the work in the office is waiting for him and piling up.)

I never really had my questions answered, because the MOM officer just told me flat out that no, he had no idea what the economic cost of NS was. He also mentioned that at the end of the day, the diploma students all find jobs anyway so they are happy.

But what if they are not happy, I countered? I would be most unhappy if I spent my 3 years in poly learning programming and graphic arts, but my dreams of working for LucasArts sour and I end up working as a web designer or in some company's IT support department.

The others laughed, the officer had no reply. I guess I put him on the spot, but I'm still looking for an answer to this question.