Idul Fitri boosts housemaid business
By Rahmat Effendi and Rani Lilia Sari
JAKARTA (JP): The recent exodus of housemaids and baby- sitters to their hometowns for the Idul Fitri celebrations created a boom for the servant agencies.
As routine life returns to Jakarta this week many people find themselves in need of housemaids or baby-sitters because their own have not yet returned from the provinces and some will never show up again.
Housemaids and baby-sitters are unpredictable, some complain.
"I need a housemaid to take care of my household and children while I work," a mother of three children told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.
Many people badly needing a housemaid or baby-sitter have tried the servant or baby-sitter agencies but returned empty- handed.
Thirty percent of the demand for housemaids comes after Idul Fitri and another 30 percent after Christmas, said a servant agency owner.
Sugito, the owner of Bu Gito Agency, said last weekend that since he reopened on Feb. 13 following the holiday, the daily demand for servants reached 100 and baby-sitters 20.
"I can supply only 50 maids and 13 baby-sitters a day," he said.
Six servant agencies interviewed by the Post said they charged between Rp 125,000 (US$52) and Rp 150,000 ($62.50) each to find someone a maid, while the standard monthly salary of a housemaid ranged between Rp 70,000 and Rp 100,000.
Experience
But the pay could be higher depending on the servants' experience and their bargaining position with their prospective employers.
The agencies get servants from the rural areas sent here by brokers who get half the maid finding fee.
"The brokers' job is to persuade village girls to work in Jakarta, they are our key business players", said Indarto from Agung Bina Karya agency in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.
He said; "The supply of the workers is uncertain, depending on the ability of the brokers to persuade the prospective workers to come here."
On arriving in Jakarta, the girls are housed and trained at the agency's office. They sleep in a simple room without a mattress, and cook their own food.
They learn simple skills of cooking and cleaning, and after few days they get a job.
Some agencies accommodate the girls for few days while others channel the experienced ones directly to new jobs because they are in high demand.
During the Idul Fitri holiday workers usually only stay a day at the agency's house because there is such a high demand for them.
The AM agency in South Jakarta channels experienced workers to jobs without housing them because it only works to order.
Housewives looking for servants during the week after the Idul Fitri holiday, said they preferred to get servants from the agencies because the maids had all the right documents.
"This gives us a sense of security about them," a woman, who asked for anonymity, said.
In addition the agencies are registered with the City's Ministry of Manpower office.
"They also guarantee that we can trial a worker for three months and if we find she is not the one we want they will send a new one to replace her."
But this guarantee is sometimes abused by both the agencies and the workers, some employers said.
The employers said both parties arranged that the maids would leave their new employers after three months and then they returned to the agencies to be sent to other needy families.
In this way the agencies made more money, they said.
However, most agencies denied these assertions, saying the servants really want to work for a long period but "things depend on how the employers treat them".
"That is also the case for baby-sitters," a South Jakarta employer said.
Baby-sitter agencies charge between Rp 175,000 and Rp 200,000 for each of the workers they supply.
The difference between the two agencies is that the latter insists the baby-sitters pay 15 percent of their monthly salary to the agency for getting them the job.
The standard salary starts around Rp 175,000 with the highest about Rp 400,000, depending on experience.
However, when the supply of baby-sitters is low, the agencies send temporary ones. For this service they charge a daily rate of between Rp 25,000 and 35,000.