What each path actually involves
Renewing is the lighter path administratively: her existing PL(KS)/VP(TE) gets extended rather than replaced, which means a medical exam and document renewal rather than a fresh application built from zero. It doesn’t reset anything about the household relationship itself; whatever has been working, or hasn’t, carries straight through into another term.
Hiring again is a different scale of task. It means properly ending the current employment first, then running the full search-to-placement sequence set out in the dedicated hiring-process guide: sourcing a candidate, the permit steps a new hire brings, and the settling-in period any new placement needs. Neither path is inherently the easier one; they are easier or harder in different ways.
The fit questions worth answering honestly
A renewal decision that runs on autopilot, simply because starting a search feels like more effort, tends to store up problems rather than avoid them. The more useful starting point is how the working relationship has actually gone over the current term, not just whether anything has gone seriously wrong, but whether day-to-day communication, reliability, and trust have held up.
Household needs also shift in ways worth checking against her actual skills and experience. A helper hired for one stage of a family’s needs, young children for instance, may or may not still be the right fit once those needs move toward eldercare or a different kind of housekeeping load. None of this is a fact to look up; it’s a judgement only the household can make.
- How the working relationship has gone in daily practice, not just whether anything has gone wrong
- Whether her skills and experience still match where the household’s needs have moved
- How much trust and communication have actually held up over the current term
The timing that forces the decision either way
Renewal has a real deadline: the dedicated renewal guide sets the submission window at three months before her PL(KS)/VP(TE) expires, and that window is what should set your own timeline, not the other way round. Leaning toward renewal with only a few weeks of runway left is a different conversation from leaning that way with three months still ahead.
Leaning toward ending the employment instead brings its own timing. The end-of-employment process applies, running on the Employment Act’s 14 days’ notice or indemnity in place of notice under s.57, and that Act reaches Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan only. Sabah and Sarawak each run their own separate systems for ending a domestic employee’s service; check the dedicated guide for either state rather than assuming it matches.