The exchange took place at the 99th Session of the International Labour Conference being held in Geneva.
Al-Humaid asked Iskandar to rein in local recruiters who have exorbitantly raised the charges of hiring Indonesian maids to up to SR7,500 per maid.
Hiring Indonesian maids has traditionally been less costly than hiring maids from other countries. Saudi households who hire maids legally pay up to around SR10,000 for fees, including the cost of the visa, red tape, two months wages in advance, air ticket and the fee charged by the recruiting firm. Saudis consistently complain of maids absconding after a short period of time and of rising recruitment costs.
Meanwhile, members of the foreign manpower recruitment committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) on Wednesday dismissed any possibility of lowering the cost of recruiting housemaids from Indonesia. The JCCI says a large portion of this cost entails dealing between local recruitment firms and their partners in labor-remitting countries. “What really controls the recruitment costs is the trade dealings between recruitment offices in the two countries,” Yahya Hassan Al-Maqbul, chairman of the committee told Arab News. He said the rise and fall in recruitment charges is often liable to change depending on the transactions between recruiters and the providers of manpower in Indonesia. Time often plays a role in these transactions, he added. He said members of a Saudi labor recruitment committee are currently in Indonesia making efforts to bring down the costs of foreign manpower recruitment.
“The Saudi Embassy in Jakarta is also supporting these efforts,” he added. The chairman hoped that prices of recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia would come down “especially that we are now starting the season of great demand for Indonesian housemaids who are well-trained on housework before they come here.”
Demand for domestic workers peaks during the Ramadan when families host dinners and visitors.
Saeed Ali Hamdan Al-Ghamdi, a member of the committee of the JCCI, said recruitment charges of a housemaid from Indonesia is now between SR7,200 and SR7,500 and added that this year the demand for housemaids from Indonesia had increased by 40 percent.
The Arabic daily Al-Riyadh newspaper Wednesday said the Saudi Embassy in Jakarta was making strenuous efforts to bring down the cost of recruitment of Indonesian housemaids by at least 30 percent.
