Domestic staff recruitment agencies call for assistance to surmount virus tolls

AMMAN — President of the Domestic Helpers Recruitment Association Khaled Hseinat has announced in a statement that the sector is “on the brink of collapse” due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hseinat said that the sector is “among those most affected by the pandemic”, estimating its losses at JD10-12 million and voicing demands to reopen it within public health and safety protocols. 

“We have been closed for three months and I suspect we will be closed for another three if the airport does not open soon,” said Mohammad Sbeih, an owner of a domestic worker recruitment agency in Amman.

He told The Jordan Times over the phone that the Ministry of Labour “must quickly declare measures to open the sector first by opening the labour market to workers from certain countries and then by opening the airport to receive them”.

Sbeih, however, said that all this “must be done according to public health measures, with workers being given a coronavirus test and then quarantined as a precaution”.

Hseinat pointed out that the sector, which is mainly involved in recruiting female domestic workers, has made several demands, which he noted “must be implemented to ensure its continuity”.

Among the demands of the sector, according to Hseinat, is to be given an “adequate” period, extending beyond the six months already granted by the government, for recruitment agencies to pay bank guarantees.  

Recruitment agencies have also called for postponing tax dues for the sector by at least one year with instalments beginning next year, and obliging the Social Security Corporation to pay the salaries of workers in the sector, he said.

“As the sector has been suspended since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, it is not able to pay its dues before 2021,” said Mosleh Rababah, vice president of a recruitment agency in Irbid.

Rababah added: “It is not only that the workers we were supposed to bring in are now on hold and therefore so is our commission — but also, many homes are returning their workers as they are no longer able to afford a domestic worker due to layoffs and such.”

Hseinat has also requested the Ministry of Labour to list the sector among those most affected by the pandemic.