Business opportunities for expatriates have been created by the Saudi crackdown on illegal foreign workers.
Indeed, local establishments in need of Filipino staff have sought the help of well-connected expatriates to assist them in recruiting fellow Filipinos who have rectified their status to continue working in the Kingdom.
“These establishments feel that local recruitment agencies are too slow to hire people for them, so they have sought the help of well-connected expats to recruit on their behalf,” said one Filipino involved in the recruitment process.
He said that aside from him, he knows of two other compatriots who are also involved in the recruitment process to augment their income.
This Filipino national, who works in a hospital in Riyadh and who has been in the Kingdom for more than 20 years, said that he has recruited 17 prospective employees for two companies.
“The agreement is that I’d be paid SR 300 to SR 400 for every person I recruit,” he said. He did not explain, however, whether he gets paid after he has submitted the documents.
He added that his job entails gathering mandatory paperwork from prospective recruits, including filling out application forms and submitting these to the establishments, which have enlisted his services.
“The establishment turns the documents over to the local recruitment agency, which would in turn bring these to the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Riyadh (POLO-Riyadh),” he said.
The POLO would go over these and if no additional documents are required, it would return these to the recruitment agency representative.
The documents would be sent to a counter recruitment agency in Manila, which would consequently submit these to the Philippine Overseas Employment for approval.
Expats help local firms recruit staff for a fee
