Deployment of Filipino housemaids to Bahrain and other countries in the Middle East has dropped to 10 per cent of the total job orders in the first five months of this year, according to the Philippines government.

However, the Philippines' Department of Labour and Employment (Dole) labour secretary Arturo Brion refused to attribute the decline to the country's government policy of doubling the minimum salary for maids to $400 (BD150) beginning from December 15.

The labour official said in Manila that the demand for maids has gone down while job orders for skilled workers, including nurses, engineers and teachers, have increased.

Brion added that the drop in the deployment of domestic helpers did not bother him at all.

'What is most important is that the deployment of our professionals and skilled workers is going up,' he said.

Dole noted that between January and May this year, skilled workers comprised the bulk of deployment while maids had fallen to third place.

'Our household service workers are now at number three and leading the deployment are the professional and skilled workers,' said Brion.

Filipino Ambassador Eduardo Maglaya said in his Philippines Independence Day message that more and more Bahraini companies were employing professional Filipino workers.

The Philippines Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) administrator Rosalinda Baldoz said that the shift was a positive sign that the reform package for maids implemented late last year has become effective in improving the quality of Filipino manpower required by foreign employers.

She reported that job requests for maids decreased to a low of 15 per cent of the total job orders during the first quarter this year, compared with 60 per cent during the same period last year.

Baldoz noted that 52 per cent of the demand was for service industry workers such as salespeople, waiters and waitresses, beauticians and building workers; and 16 per cent from the engineering and construction industry sector.

She said she anticipated the shift in the quality of manpower demand in the Middle East, not only because of the implementation of the reform package for maids but also the development of tourism, oil and industry sectors in the region.

Another labour official, who did not want to be named, attributed the drop in the deployment of maids partly to the salary adjustment.

He said many employers in the Middle East opted to extend the contract of their maids instead of giving her a plane ticket to go back to the Philippines. The official said this was a way to avoid hiring back the same worker at the higher salary.

'Other Middle Eastern employers are now hiring domestic helpers from other Asian countries, like India, at lower salaries,' he said.

The Philippines' Overseas Workers Welfare Administration administrator Marianito Roque explained that only the new contracts processed by the POEA were covered by the $400 minimum salary for maids.

When asked if employers were really extending the contracts of their workers without approval from the Philippines government, Roque said that 'it's possible'.

Late last month, recruiters from Bahrain and four other GCC countries had threatened to recommend the banning of all Filipino workers until the Philippines revised the policy mandating the $400 monthly salary.

The UAE is the only country in the GCC that has adopted the new minimum salary. TradeArabia News Service