The Singapore Ministry of Manpower (“MOM”) laid out the increased requirements and decreased quotas for obtaining Singapore Employment Pass (“EP”) going forward.
Bottomline: With new regulations, economic headwinds and political sensitivity, Singapore EP, or S Pass, will be significantly more difficult to get in 2020.
Key Takeaways:
- S Pass quotas will be reduced in 2021 and 2023 respectively.
- Local Qualifying Salary threshold will be raised from S$1,300 to $1,400 on July 1, 2020. This is used to determine the ratio calculation for foreigners vs. local employees.
- EP Salaries will be compared to local hires and compared if deemed reasonable.
- EP minimum qualifying salaries will be raised from S$3,600 to S$3,900 on May 1, 2020.
- Salary Criteria will now be judged in tandem to age and expected salaries. This means that a person in their early 40s will need to earn double the expected new qualified minimum salary of $3,900.
- The MOM will investigate salary increases vis a vie applications in order to prevent a freezing of existing employee salaries to allocate more budget to new EP applications.
The full breakdown can be found here.