Well well it has been a while since the last time I wrote a post in this blog. I have to admit that life/work has been rather busy. Especially when TV series are now on the run, I can foresee myself stranded farther away from this blog. For this post, I want to write about work pass, and since there are a lot of stuff to talk about regarding this thing, I might have to divide it into a few parts, or maybe just two.
I hate it when it comes to red tape and bureaucracy, but there is no way escaping this when you want to work in another country. Singapore has different type of passes for different area of work. They have Work Permit(WP) for unskilled workers, S-Pass for mid-skill workers, and Employment Pass(EP) for professionals. You have to meet the minimum salary requirement for all these passes.
WP : Below 2000
S-Pass : S$2000-2800
EP : S$2800 and above
*You can refer to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) website for more details
Actually EP is divided into 3 more sub-classes, Q1, P2, and P1. Other than bragging right, I dont really know what are the differences and benefits between all the passes. Owh wait, I heard that EP holder can actually use the automatic gate in Singapore Immigration(again this is actually a bragging right if you think about it) although I haven't tried it yet. And I remember reading in MOM homepage P2 and P2 have some benefits regarding tax reduction. Thats how the world works nowadays, the rich pay less tax!
FYI this EP thing is not personalized, and it is your company that has to apply for you. Which means, you have to apply for a new pass everytime you want to job hop. And yes, if you job hop too much, there is high chances that MOM will reject you pass application. However, there are few job hoppers claim that their application got approved without any problem. I guess it kinda depends on your luck too. Last time the application fee was S$60 for EP-Q1. I'm not sure about other passes but should not be far from that. But I think they might have revised the fee along with the min salary requirement. Anyway, usually your employer will pay for this application fee, but some lame el-cheapo employer might ask your money for the application fee. Okay thats it for now, see ya later.
