Advice/Help! Electrical work / visa

[Sparky1]

I've never posted in a forum, so any feedback is much appreciated.

Basically, i'm an English electrician / supervisor looking for a visa/job and have been in Singapore for around a week now. My girlfriend is on a Spass (English as well) .. hence the move!

I know it's early days but i'm eager to get out there and explore every avenue. I can see how hard it's going to be.. but who said life was easy? I know the wages don't even come close to back home in London, which is fine with me as its more with being with my girlfriend and living in Singapore!

Very open minded in looking in to other work for example, sales / recruitment as i feel my personality / communication and people skills are excellent for this type of role.

If any one could help me out here with advice or suggestions or even if anyone knows someone..
Literally any feedback would be amazing.

Thanks in advance.

[ecureilx]

I've never posted in a forum, so any feedback is much appreciated.

Basically, i'm an English electrician / supervisor looking for a visa/job and have been in Singapore for around a week now. My girlfriend is on a Spass (English as well) .. hence the move!

I know it's early days but i'm eager to get out there and explore every avenue. I can see how hard it's going to be.. but who said life was easy? I know the wages don't even come close to back home in London, which is fine with me as its more with being with my girlfriend and living in Singapore!

Very open minded in looking in to other work for example, sales / recruitment as i feel my personality / communication and people skills are excellent for this type of role.

If any one could help me out here with advice or suggestions or even if anyone knows someone..
Literally any feedback would be amazing.

Thanks in advance.

You should be allowed to work in your profession, as per local laws.

Unless your girl friend got you a dependent pass.

In S pass, she don't qualify.

So what's your plan B ?

So

[sundaymorningstaple]

I've never posted in a forum, so any feedback is much appreciated.

Basically, i'm an English electrician / supervisor looking for a visa/job and have been in Singapore for around a week now. My girlfriend is on a Spass (English as well) .. hence the move!

I know it's early days but i'm eager to get out there and explore every avenue. I can see how hard it's going to be.. but who said life was easy? I know the wages don't even come close to back home in London, which is fine with me as its more with being with my girlfriend and living in Singapore!

Very open minded in looking in to other work for example, sales / recruitment as i feel my personality / communication and people skills are excellent for this type of role.

If any one could help me out here with advice or suggestions or even if anyone knows someone..
Literally any feedback would be amazing.

Thanks in advance.

You have several problems staring you in the face. One, she cannot get an LTVP for you as you cannot get any proof of, say, a common law setup in the UK as the UK will not give you any such verification. So you are stuck on a bog standard tourist visa which after leaving and return a couple of days / week later will result in you most likely getting only a ticket back to London.

Two. Unless your electrician qualification have a prefix of B.Sc OR HND in Electical Engineering, or you have at least 10+ years as an electrical Technician/Supervisor in a needed field such as the Ship Building or Oil & Gas industries you will probably never get any sort of Employment Pass as there are plenty of people here with those types of qualifications. Sadly, the O&G & Ship/Rig building industry has taken a rather big hit the past two years, with one of the major players, Keppel-Fels having laid off 8,000 employees last year. If your electrical experience is in the building construction/maintenance arena, you can pretty well forget it unless you are a qualified HVAC Engineer/Technician (large scale commercial applications). Too many locals with normal sparky qualifications here, you wouldn't get your foot in the door regardless if you were willing to work for free as the MOM (Ministry of Manpower) would probably never give you an Employment pass for that industry. It's not like the old days.

As far as changing industries is concerned, forget it. Without any experience in a new field you will never get an Employment Pass or S pass (a lower form of Employment Pass). The lowest (read lowest salary) Pass is the Work Permit, but westerners are not able to get Work Permits as they are designed for the surrounding 3rd world populations to come here to do the grunt work that the locals refuse to do. It's not available to the rest of the world's populations.

I'd say you are going to be in for a rather rough time of it, and unless something really unusual happens, I reckon I see disaster in the future. Sorry I can't write anything rosier or upbeat, but it's rough here at the moment (for the past 5 years, truth be known). Good Luck.

[PNGMK]

OP - if you can I would more to being a 'marine' or 'rig electrician' and finding rotation work - that way you can fly into Singapore for your 2/4 weeks off and then go back to work for 2/4 weeks. That will not require any special passes from Singapore.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I was going to suggest that as well, PNGMK, but with the exploration downturn worldwide it might be difficult unless he can go to Aberdeen or some such and get hired on in the UK with a request for an Asian assignment and, as you say, do a month on/off rotation but flying back to Sg. Hey, I did just that for the first 11 years I were here in Singapore! 11 years on a tourist visa! gotta be a record. 1 local wife, 2 children born here, 3 cars owned here - without any residency at all.

[PNGMK]

I was going to suggest that as well, PNGMK, but with the exploration downturn worldwide it might be difficult unless he can go to Aberdeen or some such and get hired on in the UK with a request for an Asian assignment and, as you say, do a month on/off rotation but flying back to Sg. Hey, I did just that for the first 11 years I were here in Singapore! 11 years on a tourist visa! gotta be a record. 1 local wife, 2 children born here, 3 cars owned here - without any residency at all.

SMS, we're so old our experience barely counts but buddies in the North Sea are telling me it's pickin up AND that a lot of folk are not coming back in (they've retired, can't get a new medical or left the industry and don't want another upheaval). OP might want to look into ROV work - good for sparkies.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Interesting. But yeah, I'm gettin' a bit long in the tooth and have lost contact or outlived a lot of my old contacts. But your right, ROV's sound like the way to go. I know most of my cohort who were 20 years younger that I, went the ROV route, but mostly as pilots. Didn't know it was picking up again. Ultra-Deep Semi-sub type stuff?

[Sparky1]

Thanks for all your comments, it's great just to get a feel. Actually some interesting points made ones which i wouldn't have considered myself.

ROV and doing the on/off is potentially a great solution. But ill be honest.. i'm 26 and completed my apprenticeship when i left school (probably as most) and haven't really studied a specific field within the electrical industry. Iv'e worked and travelled a lot (working on the solar panel industry in Darwin Australia) So 'on paper' it doesn't really reflect my skills. which becomes increasingly difficult to get a shot in such a field.. Unless you know someone .. which seems to be the 'norm' now a days.

Anyway apologies for the life story. I'm a persistent and positive individual so we shall see what comes about.

Like i said it's just great to get feedback (which actually does help) . 11 years on a tourist visa now that is impressive! and proof that it can be done!

Thanks again and please feel free to share any more suggestions or advice.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Sparky,

Just remember, those two children are 28 and 33 today and the eldest made me a grandpa 15 months ago. That was a quarter of a century ago! How old did you say you were?

[PNGMK]

Send me a PM when you get to Singapore. I still have some contacts in the ROV industry who will talk to you.