The Absolute Basics of Arranging for Domestic Service in Singapore

With Singapore’s economy already strong and becoming even more so, many families throughout the country are looking for ways to enjoy life even more. In many cases, this means seeking help with the duties and routines that might otherwise drag down the quality of daily living. Because of this, the domestic service industry in Singapore has been booming in recent years.

That industry, though, is a tightly regulated one, a fact that has some important implications for those who wish to take advantage of what it has to offer. Wanting to protect both live-in maids and the families that hire them, the government of Singapore enforces some fairly stringent requirements regarding such arrangements.

The most basic of all, of course, is that anyone who works in Singapore as a domestic servant under the auspices of the program must, in fact, live with the family to be served. While there have been attempts in the past at loosening this requirement, it has stood the test of time and seems likely to do so in the future.

Beyond that basic rule, domestic servants are also divided into three basic classes in legal terms. The first are those living abroad in their home countries and seeking work in Singapore without having any particular connections there. The second are those who are abroad but already in contact with at least one potential employer in Singapore, improving the chances of a mutually rewarding domestic service arrangement being formed.

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Finally, maids already working for others in Singapore are sometimes available to transfer to other employers. A whole range of maid agencies in singapore work with families and domestic employers of all types, with most agencies focusing on one particular class of maid or the other.

As might be expected, the easiest and fastest way to hire a domestic servant tends to be to engage a transfer maid to arrange an in-country transfer. This is typically routine work for the kind of maid agency singapore locals work with, since it does not involve acquiring a brand new working visa for the domestic servant in question.

Going this route typically entails other advantages, too. At the average maid agency singapore has to offer, transfers will make up a significant portion of all activity partly because domestic servants of this kind have established records that can make it easier to judge the quality of their work. Although some families do go through the trouble of bringing in maids from overseas, most find it easier and more rewarding to simply arrange a transfer, instead.