RIYADH — Experts estimate that during the next 10 years Saudi Arabia will recruit more than two million domestic servants to work in different parts of the country, Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper reported yesterday.
Walid Al-Suwaidan, director of the Recruiting Offices Committee in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Riyadh, said that the Saudi labor market would receive two million domestic servants of various nationalities over the next 10 years. The annual figure is expected to between 250,000 and 300,000.
“The establishment of nurseries will help reduce recruitment from outside the Kingdom. This would drastically reduce the entry of foreign domestic workers and at the same time create job opportunities for Saudi women,” Al-Suwaidan said.
He called on people to give up hiring unnecessary domestic helpers and those who hire maids purely for prestige not to do so.
Many families recruit maids from abroad without any actual need for them. “One family stipulated in the marriage contract that the groom should hire a maid. I believe that a newly married woman should be able to depend upon herself to take care of her husband and the household affairs,” Al-Suwaidan added.
The number of maids of various nationalities currently working in the Kingdom is estimated at one million.
An Indonesian diplomat in Riyadh put the number of domestic workers from his country in the Kingdom at 700,000.
Saudi employers reportedly incur annual losses of SR38 million as a result of domestic workers deserting them. In 1999 and 2000, there were more than 6,000 cases of runaway maids.
