EMPLOYMENT PASS (EP) AND WHAT IT GIVES TO THE HOLDER
Employment Pass is an endorsement in the Passport constituting permission to stay for a minimum period of two years.
To encourage the transfer of expertise and technology to the local workforce, it has been the Government’s policy to encourage companies, foreign and local alike, to prioritise hiring and training locals. Notwithstanding this, your company is still allowed to bring in expatriate personnel by applying an EP where there is shortage. This include where the expatriate himself is the shareholder of the company.
Of course you must have a company first before you can apply for an EP because it’s your company, rather than you, that must make the application. As an expatriate, you are not allowed by the Immigration Department to apply it yourself. The application must be done by the company that intends to hire you.
The procedure is roughly as follows; you must first apply for an approval for the creation of an Expatriate Post in your company from the relevant authorised agencies. Only when the Post has been approved we will proceed to apply the EP with the Immigration Department.
Other than the two changes above the numerous hassles and intricacies remain, but with years of experience handling immigration matters on clients’ behalf, we may be able to help you do it easier. So, if you’d like us to do the registration and Passes application on your behalf, what we require is for your company to issue a Letter of Undertaking (LoU) signed by the Directors appointing us as agent and giving us the permission and access to manage your company’s affairs with the ESD and the Centre. We will then lodge this LoU when registering your company with the ESD and will take over the application from there onwards.
For more information you can read here.