Ramadan 2022 - Domestic workers cost rises

The season of the month of Ramadan was a headache for Kuwaiti families due to the shortage of domestic workers and presence of excess work during the holy month.

The pandemic then came, increasing the suffering and becoming a real concern for the Kuwaiti households with the spread of a disturbing and illegal phenomenon, which is “temporary domestic workers”, most of whom are violators of law and runaways from the homes of their sponsors, reports Al-Rai daily.

Those concerned with the issue of domestic workers say most of the domestic workers have found green pastures in the private sector, taking advantage of the severe shortage of craftsmen and professional workers that the local labor market suffers from, and the repercussions of the decision taken by the Public Authority for Manpower regarding the non-graduate expatriates who are 60 years and above which led to the departure of thousands of craftsmen and professional workers. This created a parallel market by hiring domestic workers to fill this void as a result of which countless citizens and residents complain their inability to find domestic workers especially during the month of Ramadan, and with the approaching summer vacation.

The high cost of recruiting a domestic worker has become huge burden for families. It reaches up to KD 1,200, despite the decisions that set it at a limit of KD 900. This was blamed on recruitment agencies and their exaggeration in costs, in addition to other reasons that made a permanent domestic worker a rare commodity.

Domestic labor recruitment offices attribute this phenomenon to three main reasons:-

1. The lack of strictness in implementing the law that penalizes sponsors who harbor fugitive
workers

2. Not being strict with the landlords who rent their houses to groups of domestic workers,
something that falls under the category of “hiding a fugitive”

3. Impossible conditions placed on expatriate families to recruit domestic workers, forcing them to
seek help from temporary workers who have absconded from their sponsors.