Singapore Visit Pass Welcomes New Deal!
There are many children who come to Singapore to study every year, and many of the younger children need to be accompanied by their parents, and these parents need a document when they come to study - Long Term Visit Pass (LTVP) or Long Term Visit Supplementary Pass (LTVP+).
Now, in order to change the pressure of hawker business operators in Singapore, Singapore is also providing additional support to stall owners.
The vendor's spouse holds LTVP or LTVP+
You can also work as a booth assistant
New spring in Singapore hawkers!
In Singapore, only Singapore citizens and permanent residents aged 13 and above were allowed to work as stall assistants at state-run hawker centres if they wanted to work as helpers at hawker centres and market stalls.
Now, in order to improve the growing costs of hawkers in the stall centres, including labour costs and raw material costs, Singapore intends to provide additional support for these stallholders, which will be fully implemented on January 1 next year.
按照人力部兼永续发展与环境部高级政务部长许宝琨医生，10月14日在国会上的回复，明年1月份起，小贩中心和巴刹摊贩的人手可以新增摊位助手，只要是长期探访准证（Long Term Visit Pass，简称LTVP）或长期探访附加准证（Long Term Visit Pass Plus，简称LTVP+）的持有者，且已获取同意书（Letter of Consent，简称LOC）或预先批准同意书（Pre-approved LOC）的人，那么就可以担任摊位助手。
In an interview, Liu Fu Chi, vice president of the All-China Federation of Chambers of Commerce (chairman of the hawker department), said that in the past, street vendors have been reporting that they are unable to hire foreigners to work, and this relaxation of the regulations is believed to be very helpful to street vendors. In addition, the current salary of a vendor assistant is between 2,000 yuan and 3,000 yuan.
In an interview, the chairman of the Newton Hawker Guild, Du Depei, said: "The current market salary of street vendor assistants is more than 2,000 yuan, and we hope that this new measure can attract more people to apply, and if they are willing to learn and do it, we will also give the same salary level as Singapore citizens." In particular, the biggest problem at hawker centres is the shortage of manpower, with stalls recruiting people almost every day, but it usually takes months to recruit a Singaporean or permanent resident. ”
The chairman of the Bukit Timah Market Hawker Association, Jiang Fengan, believes that the relaxation of the regulations is indeed good news, but LTVP and LTVP+ holders are not very large groups and are unlikely to completely solve the manpower problems faced by hawkers.
He also said that the early hawker centres kept basic jobs for the underprivileged people in Singapore and also showed the unique local culture, so foreigners were not allowed to come in to work. Nowadays, the nature of hawker centres has undergone many changes, and it is difficult for hawker centres to compete with other vendors if they are not open to vendors to hire foreigners.
Jiang Fengan's tea stall is operated by himself, and sometimes he has to spend 70 yuan to hire temporary workers for several hours, but it is difficult to hire people.
The stall owners interviewed said they would not mind offering the same wages as locals to attract them to solve the manpower shortage.
In Singapore, generally speaking, foreign spouses, unmarried children under the age of 21 or parents who are local citizens or permanent residents can apply for a Long Term Visit Pass (LTVP), which is valid for about 2 years, and foreign spouses can apply for a Long Term Visit Supplementary Pass (LTVP+) for up to 3 years.
The new permit policy will be fully implemented from January 1 next year, and hawker stall owners will have more channels to choose helpers, not only children and parents, but even non-relatives who have documents can hire stall helpers.
There are tens of thousands of hawker stalls
The minimum lease is less than S$500
In Singapore, there are currently 121 hawker centres and markets, while there are now more than 6,000 cooked food and market stalls with leases managed by the Environment Bureau or an operator appointed by the Environment Bureau.
In Singapore, the booths are rented out through fair and transparent tenders held every month, and after the lease agreement expires in 3 years, it is adjusted according to the current rental market.
In 2023, about 20% of the stalls cost less than S$500 for rent at the price tag, while the median bid price of cooked food stalls at hawker centres that year was S$1,800, down from S$2,000 in 2022.
Today, the Environment Agency is adjusting its policy on hawker centres to keep hawker food at affordable prices.
However, even if the rent of the stalls is very low, there are catering business owners who dare not start a business in the deli center.
Mainly, because all foreigners are not allowed to be invited to the shops in the cooked food center, many entrepreneurs who are engaged in the catering industry can only turn to start a catering business that can hire foreigners.
Hawker stalls are not allowed to be hired
Work pass holders
Previously, many F&B-related industries, including restaurants, coffee shops, food courts, and other permitted F&B establishments, were able to hire expatriate workers with Work Permits.
However, Senior Minister of State for Manpower and Ministry of Sustainable Development and Environment, Dr Koh Poh Kwan, said there are no plans to open hawker stallholders to hire work permit holders at this time in order to preserve the local hawker culture. While we hope to help stall owners cope with manpower issues, we hope to adopt more resilient and productive ways to help hawkers.
Moreover, Singapore's WP Pass is mainly for industries such as construction, manufacturing, shipyards, processing or services. Moreover, as long as you work in a company, although the WP in Singapore is theoretically short-term, only 1-2 years, it can be renewed as long as it is working, and theoretically it is an unlimited renewal.
However, the WP pass in Singapore requires the sponsorship and application of the employer, and the threshold of the WP pass is very low, as long as you meet several requirements, you can get it. The Long Term Visit Pass (LTVP) and the Long Term Visit Rider Pass (LTVP+) are not the same, as they are much more demanding.
In particular, the requirement of the WP Pass is that the employing company requires the employing company to purchase insurance for the worker with an insurance coverage of at least S$15,000; Pay S$5,000 as a guarantee. While LTVP and LTVP+ do not.
For the stall owners of hawker centres, it is quite possible to hire LTVP and LTVP+ to operate, especially since many relatives can help. However, for employees with WP passes, many stall owners may not be able to pay the fees, so Singapore has no plans to open this restriction.
There are many people who hold LTVP and LTVP+ in Singapore, but it is not so easy to find a job, and now that the new policy is open, for this group of people, then there is a new job channel, and it will be more convenient to find a job in the future.
In particular, non-relatives can also be hired this time, so people with LTVP and LTVP+ also have a good choice channel this time.