Domestic workers in Saudi Arabia

The process of hiring a domestic worker can be time-consuming and arduous. In order to help you navigate this process more easily, we have prepared this guide with everything you need to know about domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.

read: مكتب استقدام

Find a domestic worker from the Philippines!

Simple steps to find a housemaid

An overview of domestic workers

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there are about 3 million domestic helpers of various nationalities, including 800,000 domestic workers, the majority of whom work for Saudi families that make up about a quarter of the number of Saudi families in the Kingdom.

As domestic workers have become a great support for families as they take care of your family, children and/or elderly family members.

This frees full-time workers from worrying about their families at work and enables parents to spend more quality time with their children after work

The Ministry of Labor and Social Development issued about 1.3 million work visas during 2019. The number of visas for domestic workers brought to the Kingdom during 2019 reached about 500,000.

Domestic labor laws and regulations in Saudi Arabia

Many domestic workers are required to perform many tasks and they may not receive sufficient appreciation sometimes despite their importance to the family! Therefore, the Ministry of Labor and Social Development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been keen to educate domestic workers in the Kingdom of their duties and rights, such as their entitlement to a weekly rest day and not to be forced to work for more than 8 hours, the ability to obtain sick leave if necessary and other guaranteed rights. The domestic worker must also be obligated to preserve the secrets of the employer and family members that he sees during or because of work, and not to disclose them to others and not to affect the dignity of the employer and his family members, and not to interfere in their affairs, and he must preserve the property of the owner Work and family members.

As well as raising awareness of the rights and duties of employers, such as paying the worker’s monthly salary on time without any delay, and not forcing the domestic worker to work for one of the employer’s relatives. Issued on 7/9/1434.

Since there is no minimum wage for domestic workers because it varies according to the nationality of the domestic worker, some sending countries have established a minimum wage for their nationals brought to Saudi Arabia, such as the Philippines, which approved a minimum of 1500 riyals.

List of domestic service workers according to the Saudi system

Select your needs!

Hiring a domestic worker is a huge responsibility that requires caution and a large amount of advance planning. Your answers to the questions below will help you make your decision.

What are the primary tasks I expect you to perform? Absolutely any task you wish to delegate to a domestic worker is an essential one. In other words, these are tasks that need assistance such as cleaning, caring for an elderly parent, or caring for a child with special needs. What is the cost of hiring a domestic worker? The cost of hiring a domestic worker includes recruitment fees and other payments that will continue for the duration of the employment until the domestic worker returns to his or her country of origin.

Tip: Make a list of the tasks that you need the domestic worker to perform, next to each task, write down the skills / qualities that you need to have in order to perform them efficiently.

supports

In 2014, the Ministry of Labor and Social Development launched a support program in an effort to protect the rights of all parties and to eliminate unlicensed brokers and offices. Musaned is an electronic platform that facilitates recruitment procedures and aims to raise the level of awareness of employers and domestic workers of all their rights and duties.

Since the date of July 1, 2019, the unified contract has been implemented in an effort to develop the recruitment sector and to clarify the contractual relationship between all parties, where the entire contracting process is concluded through the Musaned portal, and the recruitment value is paid through it. Fines were also imposed on recruitment agencies in the event that the worker was late in arriving at the specified time, which is 90 days.

What nationalities are available for recruitment?

The number of nationalities allowed to be recruited is 17, including the Philippines, Niger, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Mauritania, Uganda, Eritrea, Madagascar, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Burundi, Mali and Kenya.

The Filipino nationality takes the first place in the requests of Saudi families, and the recruitment prices differ according to the nationality of the female worker, where the value of bringing in a Filipino worker is between 16000-25000 Saudi riyals, but after launching a well-known service - which will be discussed in greater detail later - the price of recruiting a female worker through this service became Fixed price of 9292.5 Saudi riyals.

Is it necessary to have an employment contract? What should the contract include?

Yes, an employment contract is mandatory. The law in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

It requires that “the employment relationship between the domestic worker and the employer must be under a written contract in accordance with the law.

The "essential elements" of this contract include the type of work for which the domestic worker is recruited, his wages, the rights and duties of all parties....and all the consequences of terminating the contract.

As this contract is in accordance with the Saudi system and the bilateral agreements with the countries that send their citizens to work in Saudi Arabia.

Standard Recruitment Contract

After the unified electronic contract 2019 was announced through the Musaned portal, all types of contracts are done electronically through the portal, and traditional paper mediation contracts are not considered, and recruitment fees must be paid within only 3 hours of creating the contract electronically.

The duration of the contract is two years, and the employer has the right to try the domestic worker for a period not exceeding (90) days for one time that cannot be repeated by the same employer. And in case