PETALING JAYA: Families needing a maid must wait for at least three more months despite earlier talk that 10,000 of them would be arriving in Malaysia after Hari Raya.

       National Association of Human Resources Malaysia (Pusma) president Zarina Ismail attributed this to factors such as the tedious application process and teething problems with the online application system.

       “It is quite impossible that 10,000 maids will be arriving after Hari Raya. The one-month celebration is just about nine days away,” she said when contacted yesterday.

       On April 1, Malaysia and Indonesia inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the recruitment and protection of Indonesian domestic workers.

       Following the MOU, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said about 10,000 maids were expected to arrive after Hari Raya.

       Zarina, however, said the system for the recruitment was still lacking.

       “For example, the required ‘chop’ of approval from the Indonesian government for the Indonesian agencies has yet to be done.

       “The previous order had expired and they are just in the process of registering applications for the required approval,” she added.

       Furthermore, she said it would take several months for the entire process to be completed before an employer actually gets a maid.

       Even the applications for the re-entry of former Indonesian maids into the country, via the online Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS), were facing problems, particularly in Selangor, she said.

       “There are hundreds of backlog applications stuck with the Immigration Department in Selangor.

       “Some agencies are fed up and they plan to do it manually in Putrajaya,” she said, noting that some applications were put in early last month.

       As an alternative, Zarina said that some agencies were eyeing Sri Lanka to source for domestic workers.

       “Some families, particularly from the Indian community, will hire them due to cultural similarities and their capability in cooking certain types of food,” she added.

       Association of Employment Agencies Malaysia vice-president Suresh Tan also doubted that the Indonesian maids would arrive that soon.

       “While it’s good that the MOU was signed to open doors again for Indonesian maids to come into the country, I don’t foresee them arriving anytime soon.

       “This is because the One Channel System (OCS) online application for Indonesian maids is not in place for the purpose,” he said.

       Some agencies, he said, were now looking at other source countries for domestic helpers.

       He noted that the demand for Sri Lankan domestic helpers had yet to pick up despite them being allowed to enter the country over the past decade.

       Job agency consulting director Julian Tan said that it used to take at least three months to process an application for a domestic helper during pre-pandemic times.

       “Although the MOU was signed in early April, there is currently zero application for new Indonesian domestic helpers,” he said.

       This was because the online application system had yet to be set up, he added.

       He also said that Indonesian recruitment agencies had not received the “chop order approval” for applications to be submitted

       On hiring domestic helpers from Sri Lanka as an alternative, Tan said that agencies were currently facing problems making applications.

       “The FWCMS in Sri Lanka is not working.

       “So no applications can be made even it you want to hire a maid from Sri Lanka,” he added.

       He said that Indonesian domestic helpers were still the preferred choice among families here due to cultural similarities.