{"id":7537,"date":"2021-07-17T10:12:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-17T02:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dollarsandsense.sg\/business\/?p=7537"},"modified":"2022-01-28T14:25:27","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T06:25:27","slug":"solving-2-issues-for-expat-employment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dollarsandsense.sg\/business\/solving-2-issues-for-expat-employment\/","title":{"rendered":"Solving 2 Issues For Expat Employment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article is contributed by Michele Ferrario, Co-Founder and CEO at StashAway. It was first published on his LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last few months, I have had several conversations with senior business leaders in Singapore, with regards to the approach taken by companies in helping expat professionals fund their retirement plans. These conversations were triggered by StashAway<\/a>‘s choice to offer to its Singapore-based expat team members a \u201cCPF-for-expat\u201d plan and our decision to make it a feature within StashAway Workplace, available to other companies as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read an article on the Strait Times titled \u201cTech firms in Singapore respond to foreign talent crunch with higher salaries, attractive work culture<\/a><\/em>\u201d, and I thought that my personal experience on the topic of retirement plans for expat could be relevant for a few people. I therefore decided to share here a few thoughts on this topic. Please note that this short article looks at Singapore as an example, but similar issues are relevant in most markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me take a step back and look at where the issue starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Singapore Government offers a great pension scheme (\u201cCPF\u201d) to Singaporeans and Permanent Residents (\u201cPRs\u201d), engineered to provide the foundation for their retirement plan. While for most people CPF is not enough to maintain the same lifestyle enjoyed during one\u2019s working years, it is an important building block: as written in the CPF official website, \u201cThe Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a comprehensive social security savings plan that has provided many working Singaporeans with a sense of security and confidence for their retirement years<\/em>\u201d. The structure is simple: both the employee and the employer contribute to the employee\u2019s CPF, on a monthly basis, and the funds are invested either by the government, which guarantees certain returns, or through a more flexible scheme called CPF-IS. Over time, Singaporeans and PRs are able to build a building block to fund their retirement, with annual contributions as high as SGD 37,740 (approx USD 30,000). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read Also: Complete Guide To Employer\u2019s CPF Contributions In Singapore<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like in most countries, this government-managed scheme is not open to \u201cexpats\u201d, or everyone working in Singapore on a temporary work visa. This creates 2 potential issues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n