Leaving HK and domestic helper severance

Hi,


Wonder if someone can help us. We have a domestic helper who has been employed with us for almost 4 years. Her contract will end naturally in mid-April 2014. However due to a number of reasons we are relocating from Hong Kong to Singapore.


We will be doing this at the end of March 2014. We have offered our domestic helper a position in Singapore but she has chosen to stay in HK. We have also allowed her to have time off for interviews with new employers. We are now in the position where we will not be renewing her contract. We were planning to pay her outstanding wages until the end of her contract plus any holiday entitlement. However we have heard that we may have to pay a severance payment? Although reading the Labour Department website it's not entirely clear that we would need to do this in our case.


Can someone please advise?


Thanks in advance

Jim B.

If you have the time to ask the department of labour, please do so. It's there where you'll get the most accurate answer.


If an employee has served for four years, and you terminate her services, he's entitled to a severance pay (if you're not hiring a new one, because you've made her position redundant). That's not the same as the long service pay when a worker has worked for at least 5 years. It's one or the other, I guess. In your case, it's the first one. Once cleared, please share your experience to clear up this issue with many others.