PETALING JAYA: With the expected surge of applications to hire domestic helpers once the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Malaysia and Indonesia is signed on Friday, employment agencies are urging the government to ensure that the process is seamless.

       Association of Employment Agencies Malaysia vice-president Suresh Tan claimed he was told that the application process would have to be manually conducted currently as the online system, One Channel System (OCS), is having issues.

       “If there is no proper system, there will be hiccups,” he said when contacted yesterday.

       He also hoped that the system would only be used for the application process, and not for collecting payments, engaging agents in Indonesia, or accepting deposits on behalf of agents in Indonesia.

       “For commercial arrangements, let it be business to business. Let the agents contact their partners,” he said.

       With quarantine requirements no longer required for foreigners as the country transitions to the endemic phase on April 1, Tan said this would help employers save roughly RM2,000.

       “Initially, we were wondering if this was applicable to foreign workers and maids. We were told that the maids will fall into this category, as long as they follow the requirements and do the RT-PCR test 48 hours prior to their flights.

       “This would be helpful for employers in terms of costing, otherwise it would cost them an additional RM2,000. There is no announcement on this yet but we are expecting for there to be one.

       With an official announcement, he said, employers would know they would not have to fork out additional money for it.

       “We do not want there to be double standards. Maids are foreigners too, and I don’t see them as a higher risk, as they too have been vaccinated and received their booster doses,” he said.

       Tan also urged for the cost of hiring a domestic helper to be transparent, with a breakdown of the expenses.

       In January, The Star published a series of stories detailing how Indonesia and the Philippines continue to be the top choices for domestic helpers, despite the fact that recruitment firms continue to emphasise that employers must be prepared to pay a five-figure sum to hire a maid.

       Maid agencies have repeated that the recruiting fee was between RM16,000 and RM20,000 prior to the epidemic, but has increased to around RM25,000 now due to quarantine, PCR tests, and higher flight fare charges.

       In a response, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said that companies may be required to pay between RM10,000 and RM15,000 – and not up to RM25,000 – to hire domestic workers from Indonesia, since both governments agree that cost must be contained.

       “The majority of the cost is incurred from the supplied country, it is not here. The agents here don’t make much, we just process the application, the initial contract of two years and monitor the domestic helpers’ welfare and renewals,” he said.

       Tan pointed out that the biodatas of domestic helpers prior to Covid-19 were being sold by the Indonesian counterparts for RM10,000 to RM12,000 per person.

       “If they reduce the amount to below RM10,000, the cost here will automatically be reduced. If the biodatas are sold for RM13,000 to RM14,000, we can’t even cover the cost of hiring within the RM15,000 limit,” he said.

       He also said that if the domestic helpers are required to work on their day off, they would have to be paid an additional RM75 for that day.

       “I don’t know how they derive at this RM75, but it is RM75 for a day off work,” he said.

       Malaysian Maid Employers Association president Engku Ahmad Fauzi Engku Muhsein is also expecting demand to be very high after the MOU is signed.

       “The application process might get bogged down. We hope that the government will quickly rectify the online system as it is easier for people to apply over the Internet,” he said.

       Engku Ahmad also believed that the wages for the domestic helpers should be less than the minimum wage in Malaysia.

       He said wages cannot be higher than our own country’s minimum wage, noting that RM1,000 for their salary is considered “very high”.

       “If it is too high, it would only encourage people to employ illegal workers,” he said, adding that our country should not be solely dependent on hiring from one country.