Saudi Arabia, which is on an intensive drive to partly Saudize its workforce under the Nitaqat programme, is now planning to recruit lakhs of housemaids from abroad.
The Saudi media on Monday reported that the Labour Ministry would allow manpower recruiting companies to fill seven lakh new jobs. The majority of these jobs are likely to be of housemaids as well as low-level manual workers such as municipal cleaners and construction workers.
The Labour Ministry have zeroed in on ten recruiting companies to hire foreign workers. The companies reportedly told the ministry that a large chunk of the 7 lakh new visas would be set apart for housemaids.
The kingdom, which saw the departure of thousands of maids from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Philippines in the wake of the Nitaqat, is facing heavy shortage of domestic helps.
Most Saudi households rely on foreign maids to do a range of household works. The shortage has raised the salaries of housemaids and also created a black market for domestic helps.
Indian housemaids in Saudi Arabia are mostly from Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, many of whom are illiterate and extremely poor. The salaries of housemaids are very low and, worse, they face a host of difficulties, harassment and exploitation. Their personal freedoms are often restricted too.
The recruiting agencies have reportedly told the Labour Ministry that the new foreign housemaids would be paid not less tham 1500 Saudi riyals a month (approximately Rs. 25,000).
The Saudi move to import such a huge number of housemaids will be a boon for Indian maids. However, the Government of India had in the recent past imposed restrictions on recruiting women as housemaids for other countries in view of the alleged harassment and exploitation.
Interestingly, it is at a time when the Saudi government is trying to partly nationalise the workforce that it is planning to import so many foreign workers. The Nitaqat programme insists that a specified percentage of all categories of jobs in the Saudi companies and businesses should be Saudi nationals in order to bring down unemployment levels among local youths.
However, the government faces a dilemma: at the lower rungs of the workforce, particularly manual work, cleaning and sanitation work, and house work, hardly any Saudi national is available. Several chambers of commerce and employers’ association had highlighted this, but the government had not relented on the strict implementation of the Nitaqat norms.