RECRUITMENT consultant Emmanuel Geslani said on Saturday that recruitment agencies for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) bound for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have decided to stop deploying household service workers (HSWs) starting next month.
This came after the UAE Ministry of Labor issued a new ruling on the deployment of HSWs that would put the Philippine Manpower Agencies for the United Arab Emirates (PAMA-UAE) in a position that it needs to disobey the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
"Local recruitment agencies will stop deploying Household Service Workers to the United Arab Emirates by July this year as the UAE Ministry of Labor implements a unified contract that is not in conformity with the HSW Reform Package standard employment contract of the POEA," said Geslani in a statement.
He noted how the new UAE directive prevents Philippine labor attaches in Dubai and Abu Dhabi from verifying and attesting the HSW standard employment contract that is required by the POEA for processing HSWs deployment.
"Officers of the association were advised that only the standard HSW employment contract will be honored by the POEA for deployment to the UAE and that any violation of the HSW package will merit the cancellation of the license of the agency," said Geslani.
Similarly, he said the UAE standard contract has no provision for the minimum $400 salary for Filipino HSWs required by the POEA.
"The salary for HSW is negotiable between worker and employer," said Geslani.
In 2012, about 15,000 domestic workers were deployed to the UAE, making it one of the top destinations for Filipino HSWs.
But Geslani said the country should already brace for a slowdown in the number of deployment to UAE with the presence of the new UAE rule.
"The deployment of Filipino HSWs to the United Arab Emirates is expected drop sharply as verified contracts signed by Philippine labor officials before June 5 have ran out for the second half of this year," said Geslani. (HDT/Sunnex)