Data on Successful New Employment Pass Applicants since 1 September 2023

Mr Leong Mun Wai asked the Minister for Manpower since 1 September 2023, what is the percentage of successful new Employment Pass applicants who received (i) an exemption from the COMPASS eligibility criteria (ii) zero points for having over 25% of the candidate's nationality among the organisation's PMETs (iii) zero points for having no degree-equivalent qualifications and (iv) 10 points automatically because the company has less than 25 employees, respectively.

Candidates are exempted from COMPASS if they have a fixed monthly salary of at least $22,500, are applying as an intra-corporate transferee or are filling the role for one month or less. The salary threshold for exemption from COMPASS is similar to that for the Fair Consideration Framework job advertising requirement and is benchmarked to the top 10% of Employment Pass (EP) holders. Since 1 September 2023, about 10% of successful EP applications were exempted from COMPASS.

Less than 10% of approved applications scored zero points on the Diversity Criterion (C3) for having over 25% of the candidate's nationality among the organisation's professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs). About 20% of approved applications scored zero points on the Qualifications Criterion (C2) for not declaring any degree-equivalent qualifications. However, the actual proportion of approved applications without any degree-qualifications is lower. This is because any qualification declared would need to be accompanied by verification proof. Candidates who have obtained sufficient points across other criteria to pass COMPASS may thus choose not to declare their qualifications.

About 30% of all approved applications scored 10 points by default for the Diversity Criterion (C3) and Support for Local Employment Criterion (C4) because the company was a small firm with less than 25 PMETs. Smaller firms are given default points on C3 and C4 as their workforce ratios are easily skewed by small changes in their personnel. These applications will still need to score at least 20 points on the other criteria to meet the minimum 40 points required to pass COMPASS.

The Member should not judge the quality of EP candidates on the basis of how they perform on any single criterion. COMPASS recognises that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to defining the quality of candidates. Instead, it looks across six criteria, taking into account individual and firm-level attributes, as well as whether the candidate fills a shortage occupation or contributes to a strategic economic priority. The various criteria are updated on a regular basis, with inputs from economic agencies and tripartite partners, the National Trades Union Congress and Singapore National Employers Federation, to ensure that it remains relevant and tightly scoped.