Customer support assistant. salary and allowances.

[rcrist]

Hi there! I'm gonna move to Singapore from Japan, I'm European, 3 years of experience in customer care. I worked for a big american corporation in Europe and now another big american corporation is going to hire me in Singapore. Gross annual salary range offered is 36,000 to 45,000 SGD. Accomodation is not provided.
Can you give me any suggestion about salary and benefits, taxes and life cost in Singapore?
Thanks in advance for your reply.
regards.

[elska76]

i think you should ask for accomodation....at least the company might put you up somewhere near your office......i believe as an expat it is negotiable.

im a local though......i think you will do fine here with that kind of money if you live alone.

benefits will be depending on the firm you work for.....most MNCs have reasonable benefits but then again as an expat you still can ask for more hahahahah like transport allowance etc.

[jpatokal]

Your salary seems to be a bit on the low side for me, although it's hard to say without details -- in yen that would be what, 200k/month? Never take a salary cut when moving overseas! What sort of customer care will you be doing? Do you have specific technical or language skills?

[rcrist]

Yes, I have both technical and language skills. i speak english and another european language (native).
45,000.00 SGD = 3,312,680.76 JPY
It's about 275000 JPY per month, I currently get around 300.000 but life in Japan compared to Singapore's one seems to be a little bit more expensive.
product support, I should help European customers to solve technical problems using English and my native language. I should work in the afternoon and during the evening to match european GMT.
Any other suggestion will be really appreciated, since I'm gonna have the last interview within next week.
Thanks again for your time
regards.

[jpatokal]

It's about 275000 JPY per month, I currently get around 300.000 but life in Japan compared to Singapore's one seems to be a little bit more expensive.

See above: never ever take a paycut when moving overseas. If your employer bitches about this and tries to pull the cost-of-living thing on you (and they will), tell them that you're only expecting to be compensated in line with what you'd get in Europe; that you can't believe they're suggesting a pay cut instead of a raise after many years of faithful service; and that the cost of European-style housing and owning a car is very high in Singapore. Find a cost-of-living survey to buttress your arguments: eg this one says Singapore is almost as bad as London (a shame it's from 2000...) and this one (2006!) says it's just a step below Paris.

[nova74]

I must agree with Jpa, your salary is considerably very low for an expat., unless the position is only in executive level. As far as i know most expats here in Singapore are drawing very high salary 3-4times your monthly salary + many perks in exclusive accomodation, transport and even housekeeping and meal allowance. Of course it all depends on the job type and qualifications.

Anyhow, it root down to compromise as u need to adjust your expectation if it is in for an exchange for international experience and may act as a boast to your career growth in the future

[jpatokal]

I must agree with Jpa, your salary is considerably very low for an expat., unless the position is only in executive level. As far as i know most expats here in Singapore are drawing very high salary 3-4times your monthly salary + many perks in exclusive accomodation, transport and even housekeeping and meal allowance. Of course it all depends on the job type and qualifications.

Now you're exaggerating a bit. If you're a corporate bigwig or hotshot banker, sure, but loaded expat packages are a dying breed and I'd wager "most expats" on this forum are not making >$10k/month.

[nova74]

i just completed my mba module intl hr, and few of my classmates are ex-expats from large MNC co Sun Micro, Excel, Maerk, Cisco, Nortel expats considerably paid well due to 'hardships' under Hr term etc... also my previous ex regional sales mgr was paid more than 10k + accomodation + transport + entertainments.

Of course, like i mention before it all depends on the job.
Still i'm rather surprise if this is said to be large US co, coz US firm offer good package.

Is very subject and individual.

[rcrist]

I've found an interesting survey about salaries in singapore.
do you think it's close to the real situation?

http://www.kellyservices.com.sg/res/con ... %202006%22

salaries seem to be lower than the ones you are talking about.
thanks.

[sundaymorningstaple]

rcrist,

The Kelly Survey is pretty accurate. As an Engineering Headhunter for 14 years, I can say that Kelly's surveys are as good if not better than the MOM's survey. Most information you get on forum's like this is tinted with what the poster would like it to be or knew/heard of someone who got that much therefore they think it's the norm. Kelly's surveys probably throw out the highest and lowest 5% as there are always anomolies in any survey. The survey generally doesn't count perks in the case of the expat. If you add housing, car allowances, schooling, home leaves, etc to the mix then you may well find the levels you are looking for (but finding an employer to pay the expat perks is getting harder and harder and the general knowledge and experience of the local/regional engineers picks up).

sms

[nova74]

Hi rcrist

Thanks for the salary guide, is interesting to find some jobs are paid that high than i expected for local

[jpatokal]

Great link there SMS -- I've put it into the sticky.

[rcrist]

I read that the average cost for a decent accomodation is 4000S$ a month.
It means that I should spend a big slice of my salary for a roof over my head.
Is it possible to live in cheap accomodation or in a council house?
thanks.

[DimWit Kid]

I would say that 45K is a fair-ish salary level for customer service support. In fact for our own hiring on that kind of position, we'd pay something less than that. Around 40K is what I would think would be paid in my industry for that position here for someone with 3 years experience.

However, rcrist, you are from Europe, you are in Japan, and if like I presume the new company headhunted you to come to Singapore, then you can or even need to leverage on that to get a better package. Especially if your skillset / industry is so specialized that they have to look for somebody from another country to find a position that normally local can do.

A "decent" accomodation can be found with much much less than 4K a month rcrist. For a single person, you can get a decent place with less than half of 4K (condominium, not in city center). With good access of public transport it's livable with the offered salary. Certainly if you live on 300K yen a month in Japan (Tokyo?) I think you should be able to get a comparable lifestyle in Singapore with the offered salary although I'd question why would you move if there's no benefit for you (of course, the benefit for you may be more than just tangible/salary benefit, but careerwise if it makes sense to you then it may be a good move).

Lastly sorry to hijack this thread a little bit - does anybody know an available salary survey with a more 'manufacturing' inclination than Kelly's and for positions between 6-10 years experience? We have our own database and purchased report but that report has some discrepancies with Kelly's for the positions that are similar - just want to check.

[EPL]

what about this ?
http://sg.hudson.com/documents/Hudson-A ... Survey.pdf

Lastly sorry to hijack this thread a little bit - does anybody know an available salary survey with a more 'manufacturing' inclination than Kelly's and for positions between 6-10 years experience? We have our own database and purchased report but that report has some discrepancies with Kelly's for the positions that are similar - just want to check.