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Hiring maids from Indonesia and the Philippines will be given stricter regulations.
Both the Philippines and Indonesian governments are making it costlier and harder to employ domestic help from their nations. The Indonesian government has raised the minimum wage for an Indonesian help from SGD$450 a month to SGD$500 a month, whilst the Philippines government has decided to introduce a quota that would see as much as 20 per cent reduction in Filipino maids coming in to Singapore.
There is currently no quota on Filipino maids in Singapore and there are an estimated 1000 Filipinos coming in to Singapore to work as domestic helps while there are an estimated 70,000 Filipino maids employed at the moment. The Philippines government is planning to reduce the number of maids that are streaming into Singapore by 20 per cent.
The Indonesian Embassy has also introduced a major game changer by increasing the minimum wage for Indonesian domestic help from $450 to $500 a month, and will ban any agency from hiring more maids that pays a maid from Indonesia any lower. Indonesian maids have also been briefed that they should accept no lower than SGD$500 a month, and have been told to provide feedback if any recruiter were to pay lesser.
So with both countries introducing stricter policies it would seem like costs of hiring a domestic helper from either countries might rise accordingly as well.
[plinker]
