Poor reputation of employers hinders worker recruitment: Sri Lanka envoy

(Arab News) RIYADH: Sri Lanka’s Ambassador Mohammed Azmi has confirmed that the number of Sri Lankan workers in the kingdom exceeds 200,000, with 100,000 working in professional fields and 100,000 working as domestic workers.

He said the embassy is working on solving the issue of runaway workers among household workers by promoting more awareness and launching training programs at Sri Lankan recruitment offices, as well as by educating workers about Saudi traditions and customs. He called on offices in the kingdom to focus on quality, rather than quantity, when selecting workers for recruitment. 

Azmi said Sri Lankan workers face many challenges in the Kingdom, including negative perceptions about treatment of workers in the Sri Lankan media, which limits the number of workers wishing to go to the kingdom for domestic work. Nonetheless, he expects the number of professional workers to increase in the coming period.

He also noted that Sri Lankan recruitment offices are increasingly exporting domestic workers to the kingdom without any training, purely focusing on financial returns.

Recruitment offices in the kingdom often cooperate with weak and unknown offices in Sri Lanka, he explained, which causes delays as such offices do not have the capacity to speed up processes.