Recruiting charges for housemaids to be cut: ALFEA

RIYADH: Sri Lanka’s job agents have agreed to reduce the recruiting charges of housemaids from SR 15,000 to SR 11,000 to sustain the Saudi market.

Speaking to Arab News during his visit to the capital, Association of Licensed Foreign Agencies (ALFEA) President Faizer Mackeen said that the members of the association have reached a consensus on decreasing the charges. 

Mackeen said that there are more than 1,000 recruiting agents in Sri Lanka and only one fifth of them are authorised to send manpower to the Kingdom. 

He said that the reduction in charges will be conveyed by the Sri Lankan government to its Saudi side when the Kingdom’s labour team visits the island before or after the month of Ramadan.

An average of 6,000 Lankan maids are arriving in the Kingdom every month and the reduction in the charges would help increase their number, he said. “All Saudi-bound domestic workers to the Kingdom are given three weeks of training, followed by an orientation program. We are pretty sure that these trained maids will fit into Saudi homes effectively.” 

Teams from the Kingdom and Sri Lanka are expected to review the implementation of the labour agreement signed between the two countries in Riyadh early this year, Mackeen said. “It is a comprehensive accord which protects both the employer and the employees,” he said, adding that under the new agreement, the original passports of domestic workers will be in their possession and their salaries will be remitted to their designated banks.