20% Drop Expected in Housemaid Recruitment Cost

JEDDAH — The cost of recruiting housemaids is expected to go down by about 20 percent, local daily Al-Madina reported on Monday quoting a number of recruitment offices.

The offices attributed the drop to agreements for hiring housemaids which the Ministry of Labor and Social Development will sign during the first quarter of this year with Somalia, Ethiopia, Guinea and Chad.

They said citizens will have the option to recruit housemaids from more countries.

Chairman of the recruitment committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) Yahya Al-Maqbool also said the housemaid recruitment agreements to be signed with the four African countries are expected to bring down the cost of recruitment. He said the offices in a comprehensive meeting recently discussed all the measures being taken by the ministry to streamline the process of foreign manpower recruitment.

Mohammed Al-Sulami and Adel Al-Jaber, owners of two recruitment offices, said the low and medium income citizens were badly affected by the high cost of recruitment.

Meanwhile, Saudi Embassy in Manilla warned against dubious recruitment contracts.

The embassy made it clear that recruitment could only be done through licensed offices in the Kingdom. “This will protect the rights of both the employer and the employee,” it said.

The embassy said it will not be responsible for any breach of contracts or any delays in sending housemaids in case citizens deal directly with recruitment offices in the Philippines without liaising with Saudi offices.

(Source: SaudiGazette.com.sa)