Cairo: Some 412,399 contracts for recruiting overseas domestic workers were processed via a Saudi government portal in the first half of this year when more recruitment countries were made available, raising the total number of such states to 33.
On July 1, a new policy of mandatory insurance for the new house workers took effect in the kingdom.
During the first half of the year, the Saudi Ministry of Human Resources introduced other services into Musaned, a platform responsible for domestic labour affairs in the kingdom, including the introduction of new channels for electronic transfer of their salaries.
Moreover, the price ceiling for hiring domestic workers were reduced from countries where recruitment rates are high such as the Philippines, Uganda, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Ethiopia with the aim of making multiple and appropriate options available for potential employers.
Domestic workers in Saudi Arabia include housekeepers, drivers, housemaids, cleaners, cooks, guards, farmers, live-in nurses, tutors and nannies.
Saudi authorities have recently sought to regulate the house labour market. To this end, the Ministry of Human Resources launched Musaned to help customers learn about their rights and duties, and associated services including the visa issuance, recruitment requests and the contractual relation between the employer and the worker.
The ministry has said it is necessary to conduct contracting via Musaned, being the official recruitment platform.
Last October, Saudi Arabia unveiled new rules for employing domestic labour, setting the worker’s minimum age at 21 years as part of efforts to preserve contractual rights.
The regulations stress that the dues owed to the worker or his/her heirs are deemed first-degree debts. The contract should have a fixed duration; and if not, it will be considered renewable for one year from the date of the worker doing the job.
According to the rules, the house worker’s daily working hours are set at 10 hours and the employee is entitled to weekly paid successive 24-hour rest.
