Recruitment fee soars for maids from Bangladesh

Riyadh: The fee for recruiting Bangladeshi expatriates through black market has skyrocketed and now stands between SR12,000 to SR14,000.

A source from a recruitment office said the fee has spiked up by 50 to 70 per cent excluding the SR2,000 for the visa itself.

“The price increased by at least SR7,000. The fee in the black market for the recruitment of Bangladeshi maids only reflects the requirements of the recruitment office in Dhaka. The official charges set by the Saudi Ministry of Labour is SR500 as recruitment fee only, which does not suffice the operation costs of the entire process,” said the source.

The source also said many recruitment offices try to cheat the system. “The Ministry of Labour has set a period of 60 days to recruit the expats. If the recruitment office did not recruit an expatriate within that period the office will be fined. In response, many offices begin all of the paperwork for the visa early on but sign the contract of recruitment with the worker during the last few days,” said the source.

The source also said the penalty of delayed recruitment has led many recruitment offices to take in less applications.

“Offices used to receive 200 to 300 applications a month. They now receive only 40 to 50 applications a month. Offices are also pressured to submit all of their contracts for the coming period by June.

The source said there has been a demand to open recruitment offices for other countries, especially African ones.

“There have been reports that recruitment offices are contracting with Niger, Eritrea and Kenya again. Nothing is certain, we will hear of any new updates or clarifications by April,” said the source.