Filipinos in HK told to learn Cantonese

Filipinos in HK told to learn Cantonese

Deutsche Presse-Agentur Hong Kong

Filipino maids in Hong Kong have been told to learn Cantonese or lose out on jobs to Indonesians, a news report said on Tuesday.

The number of Indonesian maids working in Hong Kong has grown by 25 percent to nearly 86,000 over the past 30 months while the number of Filipinos has fallen by 21 percent to 122,000.

Philippines labor attache Bernardino Julve told the South China Morning Post part of the reason was because Indonesian maids were better trained and spoke Cantonese before arriving in Hong Kong.

Indonesian maids receive three to six months live-in training and are taught Cantonese while Filipinos are trained for between one and 14 days and do not learn the Chinese dialect.

"That is why Indonesians are preferred over Filipinos," Julve told the newspaper. "Cantonese is not part of the training back home and their training period is so short."

Julve is seeking ways to stop the decline in the hiring of Filipino maids and appealed to his nationals to put more effort into learning Cantonese before coming to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong employers are also believed to favor Indonesians because they are less likely to complain about their conditions and are often prepared to work for less than the minimum wage.

Filipino maids have become increasingly willing to stand up for their rights in recent years and a number have sued employers over working conditions and assaults at work.

More than 200,000 women from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand work as live-in maids for Hong Kong families for a government-set minimum wage of US$420 a month.