Direct Hire - Use agency or not?

We are planning to employ the sister of our helper as our second helper. The new helper is in the Philippines but has previously worked in HK.


I'm trying to work out whether to get an agency to take care of the paperwork or whether to do it myself. Does anyone have any advice one way or the other?

You can actually ask your existing helper to do most of the legwork for you. First to go to the Philippine Consulate for the forms and then to HK Immigration Department for copies of the Employment Contract. The only time you might need to be present is if you have one form from the Philippine Consulate be notarized in the consulate itself. Otherwise you can ask your helper to represent you in getting and delivering the papers to the respective offices.


After submitting necessary paperwork to the Philippine Consulate (takes about 3 days to a week processing) one can collect the processed forms from them and deliver said papers together with other required forms to the HK Immigration Department (after that you need to wait 6 weeks for processing). Agency fees are mostly for the legwork to and from the Philippine Consulate and HK Immigration Department. And since your helper's sister has previously worked here in HK she does not fall in the category of new hire, in which case she and you would have to go through an agency and pay their fees.

i'm also hiring the sister of our existing helper. she's also in the phils but has not worked in hk before.

to use an agency would cost about HK$3500 (direct hire) which includes all processing fees, medical checks etc and also the one way ticket to hk. i would defo use one as it saves queuing up at the various departments etc....i really don't have the patience or time to do that.

Just FYI, actually if the helper is a "new" hire (never worked in HK before), one has no choice as it is required by the Philippine consulate for employers to use an agency.