MANILA, Philippines - Fewer Filipino household service workers (HSWs) are being hired in Qatar.
Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in that country has reported a decline in the hiring of HSWs for the past three years.
“Based on the verified individual employment contracts and job orders, the deployment of Filipino domestic workers to Qatar has been on the downtrend during the last three years,” she said.
Labor Attaché to Qatar Leopoldo de Jesus said from a high of 33,303 verified employment contracts for domestic workers in 2012, the number has dropped to 3,967 in 2013.
In 2013, the total deployment of domestic workers to Qatar went down drastically to 3,563 new hires and 1,329 re-hires, or a total of 4,892, he added.
De Jesus said POLO has attributed the decline in deployment to the government’s policy setting a minimum monthly pay of $400 for HSWs.
“The state of Qatar does not agree to this minimum wage for Filipino domestic workers and restricted the issuance of visas well as tapped other countries for their domestic workers’ needs,” he said.
However, De Jesus said the hiring of HSWs has picked up since February with a total deployment of 5,077 for the past six months.
The Qatari government has apparently relaxed restrictions since households prefer Filipino HSWs, he added.
The POLO will continue to strictly implement the Philippine regulations for HSWs even if Qatar eases the rules, De Jesus said.
Baldoz said the decline in the hiring of HSWs had led to a drop in the number of welfare cases involving runaways.
“The deployment of Filipino domestic workers to Qatar has been on a declining trend and so are the number of runaways – domestic workers leaving their employers and seeking shelter at the Migrant Workers and Other Filipinos Resource Center,” she said.
Baldoz said from 1,502 wards in 2012, the number decreased to 1,170 in 2013. In the six-month period of 2014, this number went down farther to only 182, she added.
Baldoz hopes the declining trend in the deployment of domestic workers to Qatar will continue.
Meanwhile, the recruitment industry expressed concern over the removal of the OFW Express Lane at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) passport office.
Recruitment officials said the move might cause undue delay in the release of a new and renewed passport and negatively affect deployment of workers abroad.
Alfredo Palmiery, Federation of Manpower Exporters, Inc. president, urged the DFA to return the special lane to speed up the departure of overseas Filipino workers.