Saudi Arabia is looking at recruiting domestic help from Nepal, Vietnam, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco in view of disagreements with traditional labor-export countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The move follows successful recruitment deals with new labor-supply countries like Ethiopia which has started to send domestic help, said Saad Al-Batah, deputy chairman of the National Committee for Recruitment at the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry. He said the committee has already assigned a team to tour the countries identified and step up recruitment operations. A lingering dispute with Indonesia and the Philippines over the terms of a unified contract has caused a dire shortage of housemaids in the Kingdom. Recently, an agreement was signed between the National Committee for Recruitment and the Indonesian Labor Union but Al-Batah said merely organizes the business mechanisms between the Saudi and Indonesian recruitment offices and “has nothing to do with workers and employees.” He said the unified contract is a separate deal which is still locked in dispute over some clauses in it, he said. The Indonesian Consulate in Jeddah maintains that some clauses of the unified contract govern only the working conditions of Indonesian house workers in the Kingdom and thereby contravene the Indonesian Constitution as regards protection of Indonesian nationals both abroad and at home. Disagreements on the terms of the unified contract articles are addressed by a joint committee of the National Recruitment Committee and the Indonesian Labor Union.
