DAMMAM: Indonesian recruitment office raised their cost by $100 – SR375 – in the first violation of the memorandum of understanding signed between Indonesian authorities and the National Recruitment Committee. Implementation of the agreement began during the most recent Ramadan. Hussien Al-Mutairi, a member of the National Recruitment Committee in the Eastern Province, said the new increase was applied last week and noted that the Indonesian offices have notified all national recruitment offices in the Kingdom about it. He said the Indonesian offices had to respond to brokers' recent pressures to increase housemaids' wages by SR750, as per the memorandum of understanding. Al-Mutairi expects brokers' wages will continue to rise. They have the ability to pressure Indonesian recruitment offices by refusing to provide the required workers, he said, because they recruit maids from villages through networks they have built over several years. Al-Mutairi said that will result in an increase in the cost of Indonesian housemaids, but it is not clear when the price will go up. The current cost for recruiting an Indonesian housemaid is SR6, 000 plus SR2,000 in visa fees, with a monthly salary of SR800. The arrival of a housemaid from Indonesia takes three to five months; document processing in Indonesia takes two to three months and the training period there takes about 21 days, in addition to other procedures. Al-Mutairi said Kenya has opened recruitment of domestic workers, but 80 percent of demand is for Indonesians; demand for Kenyan domestic workers is only 5 percent. The cost for recruiting Kenyan workers is SR8,000, SR6,000 costs and SR2,000 visa fees. An experienced domestic worker gets a salary of SR1,000 while inexperienced workers get SR800. The arrival of a Kenyan housemaid would take a maximum of 60 days, he said.
