Singapore Expats

Unable to make out if my PR status is useful

Relocating, travelling or planning to make Singapore home? Discuss the criterias, passes or visa that is required.
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Wd40
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Post by Wd40 » Sat, 01 Mar 2014 1:23 am

PNGMK wrote:
Wd40 wrote:
x9200 wrote:Then I don't get why are you complaining you could not get a job in Australia.
I didn't complain. Just saying that its not easy to get a job in Australia. BTW, if you read the the list of skills that PNGMK shared 6 of them are IT.

ICT business Analyst 261111 ACS
Systems Analyst 261112 ACS
Analyst Programmer 261311 ACS
Developer Programmer 261312 ACS
Software Engineer 261313 ACS
Computer Network and Systems Engineer 263111 ACS

I think its just like Singapore. The jobs that are easy to get are those that nobody want to do. Nobody in Singapore wants to become a nurse, plumber or get into construction.
Most plumbers in Australia make more than you do in IT. In fact probably double. Most nurses are on about 3 times what they get paid here.
You mean plumbers make 200k a year? :o
From googling, I find they make on an average $25 an hour. Even if they have continuous work, that means only 48k a year.

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Post by Strong Eagle » Sat, 01 Mar 2014 3:01 am

Wd40 wrote:You mean plumbers make 200k a year? :o
From googling, I find they make on an average $25 an hour. Even if they have continuous work, that means only 48k a year.

It may be slowing down now but the mining and extraction industries wanted people so badly you could make $200K running a bulldozer.

It sure showed up in IT service personnel... even crappy ones could easily earn over $100K as a second rate break fix tech.

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Post by Mad Scientist » Sat, 01 Mar 2014 3:01 am

Wd40 wrote: Most plumbers in Australia make more than you do in IT. In fact probably double. Most nurses are on about 3 times what they get paid here.
You mean plumbers make 200k a year? :o
From googling, I find they make on an average $25 an hour. Even if they have continuous work, that means only 48k a year.[/quote]

Plumbers and sparky makes alot plus if you are a chippy will make more

Plumbers call out is AUD 100.00 min. per hour same goes to sparky
Builders on average makes about AUD 150 K a year

I was a Master Craftsman in Metallurgy and had a BSc later in life more of wanting to get the bloody degree.
I went to Chch during the shake looking for work.
I was paid NZ 200K a year doing on site building works and certification and electrical installation for HTC and junction box.
Yes, hands on work in OZ and NZ pays more.
Work in OZ is always here but getting harder. If you are in mining time is tough. Same goes to building industries
The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.Yahoo !!!

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Post by Wd40 » Sat, 01 Mar 2014 12:13 pm

Thanks PNGMK, SE and MS for your inputs. I did some research on the Expatforum/australia and it indeed looks like the job market there is bad. The advertisements on seek.com.au are all hog wash. Recruiters do it because they have to and then they just recruit internally. The key take away that I got from researching there is once you get to Australia you should be ready to start with a clean slate and should be willing to completely change careers and your prior experience may not be valued much and local experience is given more importance.

This particular article is scary:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-17/e ... pe/5205182

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Post by Mi Amigo » Sat, 01 Mar 2014 4:47 pm

WD40, I wanted to follow up on a couple of your statements, not to be provocative but to try to establish whether they are really correct...
Wd40 wrote:
beppi wrote:I became PR just to get CPF, which in my opinion is a real and great benefit.
Later, the fact that I could start a small business and stay here even when not having a job came in handy.
I never intended to buy an HDB (or any other property in Singapore).
For most people this is not a benefit, companies usually pay the CPF contribution directly into the hands of the EP holders.
Whilst I have seen it mentioned here that some employers pay a 'CPF equivalent' contribution to EP holders, are you sure that this is what happens in 'most' cases? In my situation, my employer only began making CPF contributions when I obtained my PR status; I'd be interested to know how many folks here have been paid 'in lieu of CPF contributions' while on EP / PEP. If it's a majority I'll be surprised (and disappointed that I apparently missed something when negotiating my package to move to Singapore ten years ago - but that's all water under the bridge now of course).
Wd40 wrote:For getting a job, foreigner or PR, not much difference(atleast until now).
Are you sure about that? From what I've seen and heard (here and elsewhere), having PR has been a major benefit to many people in terms of both getting interviews in the first place, and then actually securing an offer.

I'm raising these points so as to (hopefully) ensure that the information in this thread is as accurate as possible for future readers who may be looking at their options.
Be careful what you wish for

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Post by Wd40 » Sat, 01 Mar 2014 5:08 pm

Mi Amigo, in my circles which is essentially the IT crowd, people who work through contracting companies, are given the CPF contribution in hand and if they convert to PR, their employment terms are changed, such that their take home salaries get reduced proportionately.

Regarding permanent employees who work for banks like my bank and also Barclays, pays the CPF contribution to a private pension fund.

I know there are plenty of companies like yours where you get CPF contribution as an add on when you convert to PR, but these are permanent jobs in big companies.

Also regarding ease of finding job on PR v/s EP. Again those people who are in the middle P2 and above salaries i.e. above 6k, I dont find any discrimination from employers for interview calls. I have PR colleagues who are having a hard time finding a job change and at the same time I have colleagues on EP who changed jobs and got EPs applied for and processed as if its automatic. Ofcourse this may vary with industry and the reputation of the company. I would assume small time SMEs would rather prefer hiring PRs than EP holders.

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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 01 Mar 2014 5:37 pm

Wd40, sadly the world does not revolve around the IT industry, while the IT industry is pervasive throughout society. I've been here over 30 years and from my 14 years at a headhunter here, I can assure you, that those companies that pay their expat employees the difference for the CPF contributions are by far, the vast minority. Most companies with have a clause in the contract saying a contract will have to be renegotiated IF the employee applies for and receives PR.
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Post by Mi Amigo » Mon, 03 Mar 2014 4:13 pm

SMS, thanks for that insight which confirmed my assumption that, overall, the payment of 'CPF equivalent' contributions to EP holders is relatively rare.

WD40, my point in raising this is that we should (IMO) be careful about making sweeping generalisations (based on individual / specific industry experience), which may give the wrong impression to those reading a thread later on as part of their research / planning for a possible move to Singapore.
Be careful what you wish for

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Post by Wd40 » Mon, 03 Mar 2014 4:33 pm

Mi Amigo, 1st of all salaries in Singapore are not cast in stone, so to speak. Its completely upto the negotiation skills and desperation of both the prospective employee and the employer. Its not like a company comes out with a job and fixes salary as X and then when an EP holder applies he gets X and if a PR applies he gets X+CPF. If this was true then I would have never made that statement.

In real life, the X is a range and when an EP holder applies the range gets wider on the upside because for the employer it doesnt matter whether they pay it in hand or as CPF. So if a EP holder is not desperate he could get the X+CPF. If he is desperate he might actually end up earning significantly less than X.

Here is an old thread that discusses this, even before we joined the forum:
http://forum.singaporeexpats.com/sutra159603.html

Also when I said most people wont get extra pay when they convert to PR, I was talking based on the evidence of interacting with lots of people in my field, while you have only yourself as an example. Also its better people reading this take the more conservative approach that their salary wont increase when they convert to PR rather than hoping that converting to PR will suddenly make the employer pay them extra.
Last edited by Wd40 on Mon, 03 Mar 2014 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Mon, 03 Mar 2014 4:51 pm

That old thread was due to someone working for a less than upright employer. Most accept it if they were coming here from 3rd world countries as it was still better than they got at home and they weren't good enough to find an offer in a respectable company. As I said, most contracts will have as renegotiate clause if you apply for and get PR. The vast majority are like that, but you do have both ends of the spectrum where some will give you the employers CPF as a uplift to your expat salary, where others will tell you that you will have to stomach both. However, unless that is spelled out in the contract, you could effectively haul their butts to court and have the employer raked over the coals and possibly even have more CPF into your account should the courts find in your favour as what they are doing is illegal as you are effectively paying income taxes on monies that shouldn't be taxed at all as it's a COGS that the company has to absorb just like the levies. You should be paying taxes on that amount. You CAN deduct the amount you have contributed (20%) but not the other 16.5% that is the employers share.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Post by Mi Amigo » Mon, 03 Mar 2014 4:55 pm

Wd40 wrote:Mi Amigo, 1st of all salaries in Singapore are not cast in stone, so to speak. Its completely upto the negotiation skills and desperation of both the prospective employee and the employer. Its not like a company comes out with a job and fixes salary as X and then when an EP holder applies he gets X and if a PR applies he gets X+CPF. If this was true then I would have never made that statement.
Yes of course salary and other benefits are subject to negotiation between an employer and potential employee. But in my case (and I suspect many others too), I was not paid any kind of 'CPF allowance' while on EP but my employer did start paying CPF when I became PR.
Wd40 wrote:In real life, the X is a range and when an EP holder applies the range gets wider on the upside because for the employer it doesnt matter whether they pay it in hand or as CPF. So if a EP holder is not desperate he could get the X+CPF. If he is desperate he might actually end up earning significantly less than X.
Sorry but the above makes no sense to me. The employer will obviously need to factor whether or not they need to make CPF contributions - or, if they are are in your specific industry they may need to factor in a 'CPF equivalent' payment to an EP holder if it is considered the 'norm' for that specific group.

Here's the point I'm trying to make, which you still don't seem willing to accept. You stated...
Wd40 wrote:For most people this is not a benefit, companies usually pay the CPF contribution directly into the hands of the EP holders.
... Which, in my (and more importantly SMS's) experience is not the case overall in Singapore.

On this forum we try to provide information that is as accurate as possible, so that it will hopefully be of maximum benefit to people who are seeking out details on what to negotiate / reasonably expect when considering a move to SG. I think you were doing them a disservice by making a sweeping statement that doesn't seem to stack up in the wider community. If you'd said something like "In my industry (IT) is it quite common for employers to pay the CPF contribution directly into the hands of the EP holders" that would have been different. But you didn't. You stated that for most people this would usually be a benefit, which doesn't seem to be the case.

Do you see my point now?

EDIT: I See you have changed your previous post and added more text since I started replying, but my comments above still stand.
Be careful what you wish for

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Post by Wd40 » Mon, 03 Mar 2014 4:58 pm

SMS, as far as I know, not paying CPF is an offence. If an employer renegotiates the contract when someone applies for PR, what can the employee do? I mean can an employer never reduce the salary of an employee? We are not talking about fixed term contracts here. We are talking about contracts that have 1 month or 2 month notice periods. An employer can easily get away with renegotiating a contract with start date 2 months down the line. The employee accepts it or gets fired. Regarding taking employer to court. Good luck with that. This is Singapore inc ;)

Ofcourse big MNCs like the ones that Mi Amigo works for are unlikely to do this. But those are a minority. Majority of the jobs even in those big MNCs are on payrolls of small time scrupulous vendors.

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Post by the lynx » Mon, 03 Mar 2014 5:06 pm

I can assure you that SRS or CPF-equivalent payment to EP holders is unheard of in my side as well as many other companies. In fact, some MNCs don't even factor that into initial salary negotiation with incoming EP holders. So what happens when they become PRs? It can be anything.

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Post by Mi Amigo » Mon, 03 Mar 2014 5:09 pm

Just to follow up on the paragraph you added to your earlier post...
Wd40 wrote:Also when I said most people wont get extra pay when they convert to PR, I was talking based on the evidence of interacting with lots of people in my field, while you have only yourself as an example. Also its better people reading this take the more conservative approach that their salary wont increase when they convert to PR rather than hoping that converting to PR will suddenly make the employer pay them extra.
This actually comes across as rather patronising. I only have myself as an example, but you of course have huge experience from interacting with a vast group of people. Well actually, believe it or not, I've interacted with a fairly large group of people over the past ten years too. I've employed SCs, PRs and EP holders during that time, and have only paid CPF (or its equivalent) to SCs and PRs. That has also been the experience of many other people I know in my field. So please cut the 'I know more than you do' crap.
Be careful what you wish for

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Post by Mi Amigo » Mon, 03 Mar 2014 5:11 pm

the lynx wrote:I can assure you that SRS or CPF-equivalent payment to EP holders is unheard of in my side as well as many other companies. In fact, some MNCs don't even factor that into initial salary negotiation with incoming EP holders. So what happens when they become PRs? It can be anything.
Thank you Lynx, and can I borrow your 'exasperated man' image please? :D :roll:
Be careful what you wish for

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