Hello,

I’m new to the Malaysia part of the forum, but as you’ll see I have been pretty active over on the Australian Britexpats forums for about 6 years.

We have the chance of accepting a job offer in KL, working at the office of a Germany company. We moved from St Helens, UK to Sydney, Australia 6 years ago and now have dual British/Australian Citizenship.

Being new to the system for KL, I have a couple of questions:

- Is there any advantage or disadvantage in using our British or Australian passports for entry to KL and the visa/work permit. i.e. easier to process, tax reasons, health insurance, or other?

- Assuming that the work visa/permit is issued to me, what are the chances and visa possibilities for my wife to also get work in KL? I am reading that as my depended, she wouldn’t have the right to work? Is this correct? What are the chances of her getting a job? She is an office administrator/credit controller and also has extensive experience with bluechip companies in face to face processing of clients for organisations such as insurance companies. She only speaks English.

Thanks!

Hello there. Sorry I cannot help you as I'm in Penang and also a retired layabout. There are quite a few working posters in KL on here but it's a wee bit quiet at the moment, probably as the school holidays have started. Hopefully someone will be along soon to assist you. Have you visited Malaysia before?

Thanks, no I haven't been to Malaysia. I've visited many other countries in the region for work but never been to Malaysia. I've always thought I would like the chance to work for a while in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong or similar, so hopefully we find KL along similar lines.

Hello

We are a Aussie/British family. My husband has his work visa on his Uk passport and our dependant visas are on our Aussie passport. As far as I know absolutely no difference in having one or the other.

As you are aware, on a dependant pass your wife cannot work. However, if a company wishes to hire her I believe the process of obtaining a work visa is fairly straightforward and involves getting a confirmation from your place of work that they have no objections to her employment.

Be aware that it is most likely she would be offered a local wage which is very low compared to those in Aus, UK etc.

Cheers
Ajw

Thanks very much, I appreciate your help.

Hello there!
I lived in KL for 5 years before moving to Singapore 3 years ago. If you like Singapore, I think you'd probably like KL as well.
Personally I think KL was quite nice to live in, so don't worry too much about moving there!

Hi RedVRoger

I can only reply re the Q about your wife working; I think she'll be exceptionally lucky to secure paid work!

I moved out here on a Spouse's dependent pass 16 months ago. My background is manager-level HR. I also have a CELTA qualification to teach English as a foreign language and some teaching experience from several years back.

On arrival I wasn't expecting to find paid work, but before long practicalities and desire to get back in the workplace won over. I applied for tonnes of HR jobs (via portals and via agencies and contacts). I got down to the final 2 candidates for two jobs but was pipped to the post both times by a local candidate. Hardly surprising; employing me required the cost of sponsoring a conversion of my visa to include Right to Work (this is an employer-specific Right and is around RM5k) plus a minimum further 5K per month salary. Administration jobs simply don't command that kind of money - especially with no Bahasa/Chinese skills (I'd say local salary for office admin/credit control might be up to 4k if you're super lucky but really no more), and manager-level jobs often specifically require local Malaysia-specific experience (especially for HR with the employment law aspect of the work) so ex pats are undesirable.

I tried applying for teaching / teaching assistant roles in the international schools to no avail, and eventually found work with a private language agency to teach individuals privately - their experience requirements were lower. Unattractive pay and hours, though. After almost exactly a year I secured an ex pat contract for a senior HR job... Very lucky as it was a chance conversation with a personal contact, the role had urgency-related budget to cater for any ex pat costs, and its regional scope meant the local employment law experience wasn't required.

All my friends here are either young mums, teachers, or jobless with non-paid interests that occupy their time. So, I would work on the basis that your wife's best bet will be to do voluntary work (not necessarily charity stuff, of which there is a mountain to choose from in KL, especially refugee-related) but possibly unpaid work in her field for a social enterprise - if she wants to keep her professional skills up despite the lack of pay, that is! Organisations like Teach for Malaysia might snap up a volunteer like her.

In any case I wish her (and you both!) the very best of luck - I was a useless stay-at-home wife (much to my own amazement) and ended up really relieved to work again and to contribute meaningfully to our finances, even with all the irritations and long hours that I thought I was happy to leave behind!

Hi LivKL, I wondered if I could pick your brain about a dependent pass-related issue. I'm on one, and am in a position to potentially take a job here in Malaysia, however the company has apparently used up its quota of work permits, so can't get me one. I wondered if you knew whether a right to work endorsement on a DP counts as a work permit? I've been calling Immigration for 2 whole days but they never answer! Sorry to bug you, thanks for your time! Kate

Insurance company here in malaysia are definitely under staffs. Most of the international insurers are here.

My guess is she would not have any issue finding a job. She could try to send in her application online before coming here physically...

Insurance company here in malaysia are definitely under staffs. Most of the international insurers are here.

My guess is she would not have any issue finding a job. She could try to send in her application online before coming here physically...