HK families hire 13,000 more RI maids

HK families hire 13,000 more RI maids

RI maids in demand in HK

Deutsche Presse-Agentur Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong families hired 13,000 more Indonesian maids last year, leading to a 24 percent jump in the number of Indonesian migrant workers in the territory, a news report said on Friday.

The number of Indonesian domestic helpers working in Hong Kong rose to 68,400 by the end of November, while the number of Filipino maids rose less than 3 percent to 155,790.

Many Hong Kong families are believed to be switching to Indonesian helpers during the economic downturn because the women often work for considerably less than the legal minimum wage of US$480 a month, the South China Morning Post reported.

Apart from Filipinos and Thais, 7,000 Thai women and 3,930 women from other countries including Sri Lanka are employed as live-in domestic helpers in Hong Kong, the Immigration Department statistics show.

The number of Indonesian maids has grown rapidly in recent years and many of them work for illegal rates of between $230 and $250 a month.

The Hong Kong government is currently reviewing the minimum wage for foreign domestic helpers and is expected to announce a cut of between 5 and 20 percent at the end of this month because of the economic downturn.

Officials have tried to encourage local women to take up jobs as maids to help ease the unemployment rate, but few Hong Kong women appear willing to do the work, which usually involves round-the-clock child care and housework for working families.