Last Friday (3 Sep), a foreign work pass holder posted on Expat.com – a forum dedicated to expats from all over the world to share tips and advice among themselves – about his application for a new Employment Pass (EP) in Singapore.
The foreign work pass holder, who goes by the moniker “Hoang Nguyen94”, claimed that he has been working as a software engineer in Singapore for two years and five months.
During this period, Hoang shared that he has switched jobs three times so far. For the first company, he only worked for a year before moving to the second company.
After six months working in the second company, Hoang moved to the third company where he worked for another year.
Hoang shared in the forum thread that he has recently been hired by Grab company whom has applied a new EP for him on 10 Aug this year.
Hoang noted that the new EP application is presently still pending, which made him worry about the possibility of his application being rejected by MOM.
This prompted him to ask his fellow expats in the forum: “Is this a chance to get a rejection from MOM? I already resigned from my current company my last working day is 01/Nov/2021. Is there any chance to get EP to stay here?”
In response to Hoang’s post, one user commented that Hoang may face the risk of having his EP application rejected by MOM as he has been changing jobs three times over the last two and five months in Singapore.
The user also cautioned that “it is not a good idea to resign from the current job before a new work pass is approved”.
“With three job changes in just 2.5 years you are definitely a job-hopper, which is not welcomed by MOM. Whether this alone leads to a rejection remains to be seen. But if not, try to stay in each job for at least three years from now on!” said the user.
While it is not known whether MOM will approve Hoang’s new EP application so as to enable him to work at Grab company, it is notable from the thread that some work pass holders were still able to obtain a new EP from MOM even when they appear to be job-hoppers.
The forum thread was first started on 5 Aug by a user named “A”, who claimed that the expat’s new employer has just applied a new EP for her on that day.
In the post, the expat shared that she had no problem applying for EP in Singapore due to her “MOE [Ministry of Education] bond”.
But the expat began to worry about her recent EP application as she has “changed jobs quite often” – due to total industry change, problem working at SMEs, cannot stay long in Singapore, and others – and that “A” has also completed her bond with MOE.
In her recent update on 6 Sep, “A” shared that her new EP application has been approved by MOM on 3 Sep.
As it turns out, the expat has worked six years in Singapore and changed jobs six times.
“This is my 6 EP (change jobs many time due to change of industry, previous companies are SMEs or startup, so business couldn’t last or project moved to other countries etc…” said the expat, adding that she managed to stay at least a year in the recent two companies.
“I guess policy tighten, so MOM is scrutinizing job hoppers more. My advise is to keep your profile clean, try not to change job unless there is significant reason, provide MOM with details resume & cover letter to justify the reasons,” the expat added.
Next is “M”, who claimed that he has worked in the IT industry in Singapore for seven months. The expat shared that he resigned from the first company in April last year without getting a new job.
The expat was subsequently hired by a local agency in May last year, which then applied a new EP for him on 18 May last year. His new EP application was approved the next day on 19 May 2020.
According to his post, “M” moved to a logistics and supply chain company in Aug this year. The company applied a new EP for him on 20 Aug and it was approved by MOM within a week on 1 Sep.
One expat shared that he applied for a new EP on 5 Aug, after which MOM requested him to provide a CV two weeks later.
“I have recently been issued with an EP (4 months ago – new application [took 12 days]) and now I am switching to a new job. I didn’t expect the approval to take this long,” said the expat.
The expat noted that this would be his fifth EP application so far, which is still pending approval by MOM.
“Profile: 2 local Master degrees, 9+ years in SG, salary hike 50%, large company in education sector. I think the company has many foreigners – may be an issue?” said the expat.
