Cairo: Saudi authorities regulating recruitment of domestic labour to the kingdom has denied claims that there are problems in hiring such workers from the Philippines, about four months after resuming recruitment from the Asian country.
The Ministry of Human Resources’ Musaned Platform, responsible for house labour services, dismissed as baseless reports about problems in recruiting workers from the Philippines, Saudi news portal Alweeam reported.
The denial was in response to a query about a claim made by a recruitment office about purported snags hitting hiring from the Philippines.
Last November, Saudi Arabia announced resuming recruitment of Filipino domestic workers after a months-long halt. This recruitment was suspended in Saudi Arabia in late 2021.
The Philippine embassy was quoted at the time as saying the suspension was due to new regulations issued by the Philippine Ministry of Labour governing the contractual relationship between Filipino house workers and their foreign employers.
Saudi labour authorities have recently sought to regulate the domestic labour market.
To this end, the Musaned domestic labour programme has been launched to help customers learn about their rights and duties, and related services including visa issuance, recruitment requests and contractual relation between the employer and the worker.
The Ministry of Human Resources has set maximum cost limits for hiring overseas domestic workers from different countries. They are set at SR9,500 per worker from Uganda, SR10,000 from Thailand, SR10,870 from Kenya, SR13,000 from Bangladesh, SR15,000 from Sri Lanka, SR17,288 from the Philippines, SR7,500 from Burundi, and SR6,900 from Ethiopia, exclusive VAT.
The ministry has said it is necessary to conduct contracting via the Musaned, being the official recruitment platform.
