Cost for recruiting Lankan maid gets more expensive

The cost of recruiting a housemaid from Sri Lanka is costing  SR23,000 per visa, an increase seen during the past five months making it the highest among all manpower exporting countries, the Saudi Gazette reported. “This has surpassed the cost of recruiting housemaids from the Philippines which used to be SR19,000 per work visa,” Yahya Al-Maqbool, chairman of the recruitment committee of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) was quoted as saying. He said the cost of labor recruitment from Sri Lanka is going up while it is dropping to SR3,000 and SR7,000 from countries like Sudan, Egypt and Bangladesh for recruitment of drivers. Maqbool attributed the huge cost difference to the geographic distances because of the air ticket charges and the complicated contracting procedures in some of the manpower exporting countries. “Some recruitment brokers exploit the Kingdom’s need for housemaids so they tend to increase their charges,” he added.   The chairman said the hurdles put by some favorable countries before recruitment of house helps, drive the others to up the charges of their housemaids.