KUWAIT CITY, June 3: Forty-eight hours after the Philippine embassy closed its illegal shelter and transferred 412 Filipino workers from the embassy’s shelter to the shelter of the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) in coordination with the General Department of Immigration Investigation at the Ministry of Interior, state agencies have started working on implementing the expansion plan to bring in domestic workers from new countries to avoid any potential shortage, reports Al-Qabas daily.

Head of the Union of Domestic Labor Recruitment Offices Khaled Al-Dakhnan revealed that the Kuwait union has signed a joint agreement with its Ethiopian counterpart to organize the recruitment of domestic workers. He explained that this agreement will allow the provision of domestic workers from Ethiopia after they obtain the appropriate training.

About 600 employment agencies working under the supervision of the Ethiopian Federation of Domestic Workers will participate in providing workers to Kuwait in coordination with the concerned authorities. It is expected that the joint labor agreement between Kuwait and Ethiopia will be signed permanently in the next few days. The memorandum between the two unions will then be activated, which include training workers before their arrival in Kuwait through training centers approved by the Ministry of Labor.

Training
The Kuwait union will visit the training centers and ensure the readiness of the workers who are expected to arrive in Kuwait as soon as the agreement was signed between the two countries. The conditions presented by Kuwait include the worker should undergo training for not less than three months. It is also required for the workers to be educated and conscious. Al-Dakhnan indicated that a large number of Ethiopian workers is expected to be recruited to fill the shortage resulting from the suspension of recruitment from the Philippines.

Regarding the value of the recruitment contract, he said it would be consistent with the decision of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and will not exceed KD 500, adding that the monthly salary was set at KD 90 (about USD 300), which is the highest salary among neighboring countries. Al-Dakhnan called for urgency in signing the labor agreement with the Ethiopian side in order to avoid any labor crisis that might occur with the return of the school season in September. He stated that the union is in contact with a number of countries such as Kenya and Uganda, but there are other requirements for the two countries, including the need for an official memorandum of understanding between Kuwait and those countries to bring in domestic and specialized workers, which requires urgent action from the relevant authorities. Al-Dakhnan added that Kenya and Uganda are awaiting the labor agreement with Kuwait.