RECRUITMENT consultant Emmanuel Geslani said Sunday that at least four more Middle East countries remain hostile to the $400 minimum wage requirement by the Philippines for its household service workers (HSWs).
Geslani received information that Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain are still against the idea of the Philippines imposing minimum wage requirements for HSWs.
“Their officials are not in favor of granting visas for domestic helpers requested by foreign placement agencies in their countries given the $400 minimum salary required by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA),” said Geslani in a statement.
He said that opposition to the salary requirement is mainly due to the lack of bilateral talks with the Philippine government on the wage rate.
Geslani also noted that these countries do not have a minimum wage in their labor laws, which makes them perplexed with the basic salary requirement of the Philippines.
Because of this, Geslani said the industry is already expecting a slide in the hiring of Filipino HSWs for 2013.
“After topping the POEA statistics in 2010 and 2011, HSWs deployment is expected to go down by as much as 70 percent for 2013,” he said.
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