By Joey Aguilar
The Philippine Overseas Labour Office (POLO) expects a large number of Filipino household service workers (HSWs) to be deployed in Qatar in the coming months, labour attache Leopoldo De Jesus has told Gulf Times.
He said this was evident from the “significant increase” in the number of individual employment contracts being processed by POLO daily, especially during the holy month of Ramadan.
An average of 80 contracts are processed a day this month, a huge increase from the 12-15 daily from the last quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of 2014.
“While the processing of documents in the Philippines takes at least 45 days or more, we are expecting more Filipino HSWs to be deployed after Ramadan,” he explained.
He also noted that POLO had recorded a huge increase in job order applications from local recruitment agencies.
He pointed to reports published by local Arabic daily Arrayah saying the General Directorate of Border, Passports and Expatriate Affairs had started granting visas to this category of workers from the Philippines.
It is learnt that many of the new recruits came from various provinces in the northern and southern Philippines – taking either the Clark- or Manila-Doha direct flights. It is also observed that many HSWs have been recruited to work in other GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.
The labour attache said he also saw the profits of local recruitment agencies to increase from this trend.
“This is a welcome development, provided that the Philippine-mandated $400 minimum wage is observed,” stressed ambassador Crescente Relacion.
He earlier noted that the number of HSWs in Qatar had decreased from about 35,000 in 2012 to an estimated 30,000 in 2013 as a result of certain restrictions on the issuance of visas for Filipinos.
The labour attache believed that many sponsors and employers in Qatar and even other countries preferred Filipinos “because of their competence and training”.
Besides HSWs, POLO also noted an increase in the number of Filipino labourers, salespersons, office personnel, safety officers and other semi-skilled workers in Qatar. This could have been due to the major construction projects that are launched recently.
De Jesus said many Filipino doctors, nurses and other medical staff, engineers, architects, accountants and human resource personnel were also deployed this year.
The increasing number of Filipino professionals in the country was also attributed to the conduct of a special board exam that is being held annually at Philippine School Doha, it is learnt.
