A total of 1,200 quotas will be allocated for foreign domestic helpers' visa collection and 200 quotas for contract renewal applications on August 2.

The two-year suspension of the Employees Retraining Levy has come into operation and hundreds of people went to the Immigration Department's offices today to collect visa labels or submit applications for contract renewal for their domestic helpers.

The department today opened 40 counters and deployed 45 extra officers to handle the increased cases.

A number of employers have not collected entry visas in the past two weeks and some have deferred submission of the contract renewal applications pending the announcement of the details of the levy suspension. About 8,000 cases are anticipated.

As at 2pm about 1,300 of those cases had been handled. The department expects to complete processing the remaining cases by the end of next week. It will start issuing tags to applicants from 7.30am tomorrow and 24 counters will be reserved to handle the cases.