Job Discussion Forums

[mjed9]

Can anyone enlighten me on the technicalities?

Is my current employer legally obliged to give me a release letter?

Will this seriously effect my chance of changing my ARC / applying for a new one?

Thanks

MJED

[brian]

Your current employer is legally required to cancel your visa if you leave their employment. As your visa sponsor they will be responsible for you legally even if you do leave, so they would be crazy not to cancel your visa. They are not, however, required to give you a release letter.

They can cancel your visa in one of two ways:
1. Give you a release letter so that you can transfer over to a new employer.
2. Cancel your visa, in which case you will have seven days to leave the country.

Either way they need to send a letter to the MOE (If you are a teacher), and as the amount of effort involved seems to be the same for both options, it seems an awful shame that more schools don't do the right thing.

Unless you are as confident as you can be that the school that you currently work for will come through with a promised release letter,my advice would be to bypass the process. My advice would be to leave amicably, cancel your own visa, leave the country and come back in on a new visa and a clean slate. You will need to go through the process again, but this may prove to be less hassle than dealing with a potential overstay if things dont go smoothly.

Check out my post at the link below to see why I feel this way:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=6201

If you are pretty confident that they will come through with the paperwork then my advice is to help them out with the process. Ask your new employer for the relevant paperwork and contact details for the place to do the transfer. Your current employer probably already knows all of this, but it wouldnt hurt to give them a nice neat package so that all they need to do is stamp and deliver it. This should help ensure that there are no uneccessary surprises.

Good luck and let us know how you go!

[mjed9]

Thanks for the info

A quick question - how do I go about cancelling my own visa?

Thanks

MJED

[brian]

I am not exactly sure as I havent exactly done this myself, but would imagine that it would be quite straightforward. Hopefully someone with such first hand experience can correct me if the following is wrong.

1. You could go to the FAP here in Taiwan just before you leave and explain what you are doing. As they are involved in cancelling the visa if your sponsor requests this, I dont see any reason that they couldnt cancel the visa for you, after which you would have a certain number of days to leave the country legally.

2. You may also be able to have the visa cancelled by the visa office that you apply for the new visa through.

What I don't know is this. Should your school fail to notify the authorities that you have left their employ, your name may remain on their lists as still being employed by them. This may affect your chances of securing a new work permit (but wouldnt affect your visa to come back here).

The idea of cancelling your own visa is to remove yourself from any resposibility to or concerns with your previous employer. It wouldnt enable you to avoid being blacklisted if you have run away from a job, but may help to avoid any delays in securing legal employment with your new employer.

Hopefully someone can fill in the blanks here!

[Xenophobe]

The seven day grace period was done away with in 2002.

[brian]

[Polina]

An American lawyer told me it was ten days, but I've heard it's seven. I know someone who was fired and had his ARC cut off around Christmas 2002. He was panicking because he said he had seven days to leave the country, his girlfriend, his apartment etc. So it was seven days then.