Several domestic labor recruitment offices have threatened to shut doors and hand over their licenses to the Ministry of Commerce within two weeks, for the ministry’s insistence to fix the domestic workers recruiting fees to more than 890 dinars, including the travel cost and the PCR test fees.
This came during a press conference held Monday at the Costa del Sol Hotel on the ‘negative repercussions of the ministry of commerce’s decision to determine the cost of recruiting domestic workers on the labor market’ and dealt with a detailed explanation about these repercussions, which are reflected in this vital sector, reports a local Arabic daily.
Bassam Al-Shammari. specialist in domestic labor affairs who also owns a recruitment agency, \said: “Day after day, the government agencies concerned with the work of offices prove their dimension, which has reached the point of no return from the bitter reality experienced by offices and companies during the past three years, especially since the emergence of the Corona pandemic and the negative repercussions in left on the domestic labor market that afflicted “our work, until dozens of us are on the verge of bankruptcy.”
He added: “Amidst this continuous suffering, the offices (which are national private projects) did not find any help from the concerned government agencies, but the matter continues to deteriorate, until it disrupted our livelihoods and the sustenance of our children, by issuing ill-considered decisions, the latest of which is the decision of the Ministry of Commerce to determine the costs of recruiting domestic workers, which is a fresh nail in the coffin of the recruitment process, which is now threatened with a complete halt if this flawed decision continues.
Al-Shammari stressed the continuation of the decision threatens to break down the recruitment system completely, especially since local companies and offices will not be able to cover their expenses after the heavy financial losses they incurred during the first wave of the pandemic, which prompted dozens of them to close doors, especially since its continuation portends a return to the crisis of labor shortage.
For his part, the owner of one of the recruitment companies, Nayef Lamas, announced, “If this flawed decision continues, and within two weeks from now, we will hand over the licenses to practice the activity to the Ministry of Commerce and stop the recruitment process completely and go to other projects that are more beneficial and less problematic.”
