Resumption of hiring of housemaids from the Philippines will start only after signing of a memorandum of agreement between appropriate Saudi and Philippine government agencies. Although an understanding has been reached to resume the deployment of household workers, including housemaids, to the Kingdom, a memorandum of agreement, which spells out and makes clear the contents of the contract between the employer and the hired housemaid, will have to be agreed upon first, Philippine labor officials said. “The contents of the contract, I believe, are now the subject of negotiation between the two parties, and until these are approved, the recruitment will not start,” Philippine Labor Attaché Adam A. Musa said. Two important considerations to be specified in the contract are the issues of salary and who is authorized to file the recruitment request. It has to be decided whether the authority to hire housemaids is to be exercised through a local recruitment agency or directly by the employer. Musa said the $400 monthly salary is non-negotiable. “The Philippine panel has made it clear that the $400 salary be stated in the contract between the employer and the worker; that the application to hire must stipulate this in the contract, otherwise the application will be rejected,” Musa told the Saudi Gazette. The Saudi National Recruitment Committee (SANARCOM), a unit under the Saudi Council of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, has been insisting that the prevailing market price of housemaid salary is between $250 to $300. The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration said it will not agree to anything lower than $400. Regarding the issue of who will be authorized to file the recruitment request, SANARCO has proposed the establishment of mega recruitment companies in key cities. They will act as the general service companies in recruiting and bringing in foreign workers, including housemaids and family drivers. Philippines has, however, reiterated preference that the hiring of housemaids would be through recruitment offices authorized by both Riyadh and Manila. Since the suspension of the hiring of Filipino housemaid by the Saudi government last March, local employment agencies have been recruiting housemaids from Ethiopia and Nepal. Many local recruitment establishments in the Eastern Province have been mainly recruiting housemaids from Ethiopia. __
