JEDDAH, 25 October 2007 — Indonesia has raised the minimum salary of its expatriate work force, including maids by SR200. This follows a plea from Indonesian recruitment agents that they have been spending at least SR6,500 on official procedures to obtain work visas for their nationals.
Indonesian Consulate officials said they are awaiting an official report on the matter. However, agents and maids say the increase from SR600 to SR800 has been “granted” following their plea that the Indonesian work force has been increasing in the past few years.
“A majority of the Indonesians coming here were housemaids. But that is not the case now. There is an increasing trend among them to opt for jobs in the private sector, especially companies and institutions,” a consulate official said.
The raise in the minimum wage has been reported to be approved by the Kingdom’s National Recruitment Committee, although there is no confirmation for this as of yet. Committee Chairman Saad Al-Baddah was not available for comment.
Earlier this month, the committee had ruled out any move toward having a minimum wage for domestic maids.
Al-Baddah had maintained that no decision would be made until “problems in the status of the maids are resolved.” He wanted problems such as maids running away after signing contracts and seeking jobs illegally to be addressed first.
A recent survey showed that there are instances of illegal maids being offered higher salaries by families so that they could avoid paying charges incurred in following official procedures. Illegal maids are mostly those who overstay their Umrah visas. They also include those coming on work visas and then running away from their sponsors for varied reasons.
