ANGELES CITY – The government’s household service workers (HSW) reform package prescribing $400 monthly salary for Filipino in foreign countries has prompted Malaysians to hire other nationa-lities instead.
“The Malaysians now prefer to hire Indians or Cambodians, but the more discriminating ones still retain their Filipino domestic helpers who have been with them for the past 10 to 15 years,” said Philippine ambassador to Malaysia Eduardo Malaya in an interview over the weekend.
Malaya, who assumed post eight months ago, said that while the latest count put the number of Filipino domestic helpers now in peninsular Malaysia at 24,430, their number has been dwindling amid efforts of the embassy to enforce the $400 minimum pay.
Records from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) indicated that domestic helpers in Malaysia numbered 71,557 in 2009.
Malaya said that the policy has encouraged Malaysians to focus more the hiring of skilled and semi-skilled Filipino workers. The domestic workers are now outnumbered by 40,215 Filipinos working in local factories.
Apart from the domestic helpers, embassy statistics revealed that peninsular Malaysia also hosts 3,001 other OFW’s in managerial, professional, and supervisory jobs, 2,095 more employed in plantation, agricultural, aquatic and forestry fields, 2,666 in information technology and electronics, 2,125 in oil and gas and, 2,721 in hotel, restaurant and tourism.
This amid a clamor from some sectors for the government to amend the requirements of the HSW reform package minimum wage policy and allow lower but acceptable salaries and conditions for domestic employment abroad.
Recently, the Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC) and the government’s Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS) noted that the minimum pay policy has not worked after five years since the Philippine government unilaterally imposed it on labor-hosting countries in 2006.
The HSW minimum wage policy was adopted during the term of former Pres. Arroyo purportedly to “professionalize” overseas domestic jobs.
Under the police, such workers must be at least 23 years old, get a minimum of $400, and not pay any placement fee.
The policy also required the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to train departing domestic workers and issue a training certificate called “National Certificate Level II” (NC2).
At the same time, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) was tasked to subject the departing domestic workers to a language and culture orientation seminar.
