RIYADH – The flight ticket prices to the Philippines skyrocketed reaching up to 360 percent, according to the recruitment and travel industry sources. The ticket charges for one way travel from Dammam to Manila ranged between SR6000 and SR7000 while the fares for the travel from Manila to Dammam are amounted to SR1500. The sources attributed the complex procedures and conditions, introduced by Philippine Airlines, to the price hike. Meanwhile, sources related to recruitment offices confirmed the arrival of Filipino domestic workers in recent weeks, signaling good signs of ending the impasse in the recruitment process. In November 2021, the Philippine authorities imposed temporary suspension of sending domestic workers to the Kingdom and other Middle Eastern countries. This hampered even the arrival of domestic workers whose recruitment procedures were in various phases of execution. Later, the Philippines authorities allowed entry of those domestic workers whose recruitment process had initiated before the imposition of the suspension, and thus facilitating the arrival of domestic workers. The recruitment sources noted that all the countries, which are sending domestic workers to the Kingdom, are linked with the Musaned online portal of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, with regard to completing the contractual procedures. However the Philippines is an exemption for this. Manila requires the conclusion of contracts at its embassy with the payment of fee ranging between SR80 and SR100 for each labor contract. This contract will then be sent to the Philippines to start the procedures for hiring domestic workers. It is noteworthy that the recruitment offices in Saudi Arabia halted procedures for hiring Filipino domestic workers last month and that was attributed to a new decision of the Ministry of Labor of the Philippines to suspend sending domestic workers. The recruitment offices had received a letter from the Philippines embassy informing about the suspension of receiving all new applications for the recruitment of domestic workers from the Philippines. The embassy noted that the suspension of recruitment process was consequent to the adoption of the new regulations issued by the Ministry of Labor governing the contractual relationship between Filipino domestic workers and their foreign employers.
