Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are basically discussing Singaporean work authorization. I am starting to go a little broader in terms of talking about foreigners interacting with the Immigration System throughout ASEAN and work authorization in kind of a general sense. Now I am not going to claim, I have never even been to Singapore, I am not going to claim to have any real expertise regarding Singaporean Law at all. I am just talking about this in a very general sense and then we are going to get into a little bit of comparative analysis with how the Thai System works with regard to authorization of foreigners looking to work here in the Kingdom. 

So I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Singapore tightens rules for hiring foreign professionals. Quote: "Singapore will raise the salary criteria for foreign executives and professionals that companies can hire starting next year, the Government announced on Monday. The Southeast Asian Financial hub has long been a popular location for foreign firms to base their regional headquarters, while foreign labour has been a thorny issue with the local population worried about competition for employment opportunities."

This is something that is often said in Thailand, and it is kind of a misnomer, but I will often hear foreigners say "Well the Thais don't care about what I am doing because I am not taking a Thai job!"  That is not the analysis. The analysis is, look this is Thailand, they are a sovereign nation, they don't just believe that foreigners can just come in and work without proper authorization; you don't have a right to work in Thailand. Foreign nationals don't have a great deal of rights in Thailand in any event okay, so that's sort of the Thai perspective. Clearly Singapore, I wouldn't say it has exactly the same perspective but it has a similar perspective maybe to a different degree than Thailand, but at the end of the day, foreign nationals looking to go to Singapore and work, have to have work authorization, and one of the requirements associated with work authorization in Singapore is minimum salary. And minimum salary can have an impact on oftentimes, the analysis of folks who are looking to do business in that jurisdiction because a minimum salary then basically implies a minimum tax payout associated with doing business in that jurisdiction and maintaining work authorization while therein. Again in doing a comparative analysis, and I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail, they go into further detail about the exact amounts of money involved and what is going to be increased and by how much. I don't think it is really pertinent to this video, we are talking about this issue conceptually and when talking about it conceptually, I think it is worth pointing out, Thailand comparatively has substantially lower thresholds associated with minimum salary requirements when compared to Singapore. So if looking at it from a tax payout standpoint and comparing the two jurisdictions when looking at trying to do business in ASEAN, I think Thailand probably looks a little bit more favourable if you are purely looking at it from a work authorization standpoint. 

That being said, the thing to take away from this video and understand generally is if you are a foreign national in any of these ASEAN countries, generally speaking it is not presumed you have any sort of right to work in that jurisdiction. So if you are looking to go to that jurisdiction you are going to have to deal with work authorization. There are requirements associated with workout authorization. Both Thailand and Singapore have minimum salary requirements associated with foreign work authorization albeit the amounts associated with the minimum requirements are different in Thailand as compared to Singapore.