How to consider candidates before applying for an Employment Pass

Before applying for an Employment Pass (EP) for your employee, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) requires most employers to advertise the job on the MyCareersFuture job portal. This is to ensure that local candidates have been fairly considered for the role before the company hires a foreign candidate.

The job advertisement must be open for at least 14 consecutive days to allow job seekers sufficient time to view and apply for the vacancy. It should clearly denote the job requirements and salary offered. The salary offered in the job posting must also be specific and consistent with the one offered to the EP candidate.

Do note that the MOM can reject any EP applications linked to advertisements that are discriminatory or do not represent the job accurately. Below are a few additional guidelines for any employers posting job advertisements on MyCareersFuture:

• The advertisement must not contain discriminatory words or phrases against any specific demographic group.
• The job advertised on MyCareersFuture must match the one listed in the EP application.
• The employing company submitting the EP application must be the same as the one in the job advertisement.
• The salary range advertised must be visible to all candidates and cannot be too broad.

However, you don’t need to advertise on MyCareersFuture if your company and/or the EP application meet any of the following requirements:

• Your company has fewer than 10 employees
• The fixed monthly salary for the EP vacancy is $20,000 and above
• The role is short-term, i.e. not more than 1 month
• The role is to be filled by a local transferee, i.e. an existing employee from your company in Singapore is transferring to another related branch, subsidiary or affiliate company in Singapore
• The role is to be filled by a candidate choosing to apply as an overseas intra-corporate transferee under the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Trade in Services or an applicable Free Trade Agreement that Singapore is party to

Otherwise, all employers applying for EP for new employees are required to advertise the job posting on the MyCareersFuture portal. If your job advertisement on MyCareersFuture has expired or closed for more than 3 months prior to the EP application, you must advertise the vacancy again to reach out to any other job seekers.

So, have you fairly considered hiring local candidates before applying for the Employment Pass? You will need to check The Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) to know all the requirements for all employers in Singapore to consider candidates fairly for job opportunities.

References:

https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/consider-all-candidates-fairly