Hiring Filipinos for UAE too costly, group claims

Employers from all emirates of the UAE are forced to lay off highly-skilled but costly Filipino workers or go into sub-contracting (photo: Wikipedia) MANILA, Philippines - Filipino entrepreneurs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are forced to go into sub-contracting as a trade-off to the rising cost of hiring highly-skilled workers from the Philippines, a business leader said.

Online news site Khaleej Times reported that air-fare costs, labor guarantees, immigration fees and other incidental expenses like transportation and lodging has prevented other employers from getting highly-skilled Filipino workers.

"Four years ago, hiring skillful workers required only around Dh10,000 and even less," Jose Tuano, Chairman of Philippine Business Council in Abu Dhabi told the Khaleej Times in an interview.

According to Tuano, a sponsor would usually spend between Dh 12,000 to Dh 15,000 for a highly-skilled Filipino worker’s plane ticket and other labor fees to the small oil-rich state.

Recruitment agencies earlier explained that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) bound to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar are paying as much as $650 for a direct flight ticket while booking of seats take from one to three months.

Due to the rising cost of getting qualified Filipino employees, Tuano admitted: “At one point, I had to even terminate the services of four Filipinos and decided to go into sub-contracting.

Small businessmen from Abu Dhabi, said Tuano, were particularly burdened by last year’s health insurance requirement for migrant workers which costs between Dh5,000 to Dh,10,000.

Tuano added that other employers from different states in the UAE feel the effects of the rising labor cost.

Transportation and lodging woes

The Business Council chair also said the high cost of securing the workers’ accommodation and transportation have severely affected the small-scale entrepreneurs.

"Here in Abu Dhabi there are no public buses, only taxis. So companies are compelled to provide service buses to ensure employees reach on time," Tuano said.

Last week, Federated Association of Manpower Exporters (FAME) President Eduardo T. Mahiya said the lack of flights prevents OFWs from reaching their jobsites on time and at the same time having difficulty to visit their families during holidays particularly Christmas.

During the public hearing at the House committee on overseas workers affairs chaired by Rep. Manuel ‘Way Kurat’ Zamora, Jr. on Wednesday, Mahiya said the problem of lack of flights to the Middle East is seriously affecting our country’s ability to supply the rapidly increasing market for our skilled workers.

He said recruitment companies have been complaining for the past year since 2007 of lack of seats and airline flights. They are afraid that the Philippines will lose to other countries deploying to the Middle East simply because they cannot book flights to meet contractual obligations.

“Flights to the Middle East are limited due to air rights. Furthermore the local carrier Philippine Airlines does not use their entitlements and instead are selling these to other foreign airlines under ‘code sharing’ arrangements thus reducing the available capacity,’ he explained.

The online news report said that Filipino entrepreneurs in the UAE are into interior contracting, trading, export/import, cargo, packing and shipping, logistics, manpower recruitment, and real estate, in addition to the traditional business categories of restaurant, tailoring and embroidery, and personal care (salon). - Mark Joseph Ubalde, GMANews.TV

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