JEDDAH, 5 May 2003 — Saudi Arabia may stop recruiting domestic staff from Indonesia if the Southeast Asian country fails to remove obstacles to labor recruitment, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported yesterday.
The paper said the Kingdom was seeking alternative sources for labor recruitment. Saudi officials have already held talks on prospects of recruiting domestic staff from Vietnam and Cambodia.
Saudi Ambassador to Jakarta Abdullah Aalam told the Arabic daily that more than 40,000 labor visas had been held up at the embassy since Indonesian authorities stopped exporting domestic staff to the Kingdom.
“We are talking to the Indonesian Manpower Ministry to remove the obstacles to labor recruitment from the country,” he said.
There are three major hurdles to labor recruitment from Indonesia. For one thing, the authorities in Jakarta allow only 27 of a total of 400 Indonesian recruitment offices to handle Saudi labor applications.
“This naturally delays recruitment procedures and harms the interests of Saudi recruitment offices,” the ambassador said. He urged the authorities to increase the number of recruitment offices.
In addition, the Indonesian authorities want their embassy in Riyadh to endorse the work contracts of maids at the rate of $25 per contract. But the Kingdom has rejected this intervention by the Indonesian Embassy.
The third hurdle is that the Indonesian Manpower Ministry has imposed a quota system on recruitment offices, who are allowed to process only a certain number of visas a month. This measure, the Saudis fear, would also hamper recruitment from the country.
The Indonesian Manpower Ministry last year agreed to accept work contracts without embassy endorsement but the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh still insisted on it, the paper said quoting Aalam.
The Saudi ambassador said his embassy had not received any official information about the quota system.
However, he emphasized that the Saudi Embassy would not give up the interests of the Kingdom and its people.
Saad Al-Baddah, deputy chairman of the recruitment committee at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, commended the Saudi Embassy’s efforts to protect the Kingdom’s interests.
He said the quota system would help the Indonesian authorities to control labor recruitment and increase charges.
Baddah estimated the increase in the cost of labor recruitment from Indonesia at between $50 and $100 per maid. However, he said: “As they have increased the training period of maids to one month, this rise in charges is acceptable.”
Saudi Arabia is the largest market for Indonesian domestic staff as it issues about 15,000 visas monthly for the purpose.
Many Indonesian recruitment offices depend on manpower exports to the Kingdom.
Jakarta suspended export of manpower to the Kingdom on Feb. 2, mainly to allow comprehensive administrative reforms at Indonesian manpower recruitment agencies and put an end to visa mafia.
But Abdullah Saleh Al-Hamoud, a researcher in human resources, said that the decision to halt manpower exports would have a negative effect on business relations.
According to Baddah, the Indonesian authorities took the decision to improve the quality of their manpower by providing them with intensive training. The training period has been increased from 12 days to one month.
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News Staff
© Arab News 2003
