Impact of Rising Minimum Fixed Monthly Salary Required for Employment Pass and S Pass Holders

47 Mr Saktiandi Supaat asked the Minister for Manpower in light of the rising minimum fixed monthly salary required for Employment Pass and S-pass holders for the bringing of family members on dependant passes (a) whether this discourages the hiring of cheap foreign talent and favours expensive foreign talent; (b) how many Employment Pass holders and their families affected; and (c) how many SMEs and which sectors are most affected by this.

Mrs Josephine Teo: The qualifying salary threshold for bringing in dependants on Dependant’s Pass is regularly updated. This is to ensure that Employment Pass (EP) and S Pass holders continue to be able to upkeep themselves and their dependants in Singapore. To minimise disruptions to families which are already here in Singapore, Dependant Passes issued before the updated threshold takes effect remain valid, as long as the main pass holder remains with the same employer.

Most new EP and S Pass holders do not apply to bring in their dependants. However, for those who do, the salary thresholds are made known and consistently applied. Following the increase in qualifying threshold at the beginning of the year, about 1% of Dependant Pass applications did not meet the updated threshold and were, therefore, rejected in the first half of 2018. These were distributed across sectors, such as Professional Services, Infocomm and Construction. The rate of rejection was similar for those employed by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and non-SMEs.