Hong Kong is facing a growing shortage of domestic helpers as workers from Bangladesh and Myanmar — brought to the city to bolster a shrinking workforce — are returning home early, reports South China Morning Post on Saturday.
As well, agencies are reporting that it is becoming increasingly difficult to hire Filipino helpers as they are choosing factory jobs in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, where they are paid more than the HK$4,010 they get in Hong Kong.
There are about 3,20,000 helpers in the city. About half are from the Philippines and the other half from Indonesia.
Employment agencies have said that, previously, prospective employers were given a choice of a number of workers to hire, but now availability is so tight that they are no longer given a choice.
Six months since the first group of 19 Myanmese arrived in Hong Kong, dozens more have come. But one in six of them have already returned home as they could not get used to life in the city.
The recruitment agency that brought the first group of helpers from Bangladesh says one in five of them have already gone home.
Law Yiu-keung, managing director of the Golden Mind Employment Agency, the only agency in the city granted the licence to bring in helpers from Myanmar, said a total of 90 took jobs in the city, but 14 have already gone home.
‘Some of them left because they could not get used to the life here. Some did not tell us the reasons and only said they wanted to go home. Working here was probably not what they have imagined before they came,’ Law said.
Law had planned to bring in 2,000 Myanmese helpers in the first year. Today, however, only 90 have arrived because of the lengthy approval process each worker has to go through.
‘It only takes a month for the Hong Kong government to get the relevant procedures done. It takes two to three months for the Myanmar side to get it done. It is taking a while,’ he added.
Law believed that the Myanmar government is monitoring how his agency is doing before deciding whether to allow other agencies to bring in its citizens.
Teresa Liu Tsui-lan, managing director of Technic Employment Service Centre, has met officials in Myanmar in an attempt to tap into this new source of helpers, but has met with difficulties.
‘Now I am reconsidering. You need to invest a lot, and the profit is low,’ she said.
She said the Indonesian government allows recruitment agencies to charge helpers about HK$13,500 for expenses such as medical checks and trainings. But Myanmar allows the agencies to charge the helpers ‘very little’, she added.
Liu’s agency was the first agency allowed to bring in Bangladeshi helpers. Since the first group arrived in May last year, about 300 more have come to Hong Kong.
‘About 20 per cent have left because they could not get used to life here. They hadn’t imagined that working here can be so much hard work. Some left after a year because they have made enough money,’ Liu added.
Eman Villanueva, spokesman for the Asia Migrants’ Coordinating Body, recalled that he had the ‘shock of a life’ when he first came to Hong Kong as a helper 23 years ago because life here was very different from the Philippines.
‘I cried at night and I spent so much money calling home,’ he recalled.
Many helpers feel homesick for as long as half a year, he added.
‘My advice is that they need to make friends with other domestic helpers. But it will be harder for those from Myanmar and Bangladesh because their community is small,’ he said.
The AFP had earlier reported that a Hong Kong housewife was arrested for allegedly assaulting her Bangladeshi maid, the police said, in the latest in a series of cases highlighting the abuse of foreign domestic helpers.
The arrest of the 58-year-old mother-of-two, identified in media reports as Cheung Sau-kuen, came just a week after thousands of domestic workers marched in the southern Chinese city to demand justice for an Indonesian maid allegedly assaulted by her employer.
The Bangladeshi helper, 27-year-old Akter Kalpona, had accused Cheung of punching her in the head, pulling her hair, scratching her hands with a metal brush and confining her to a store room, The Standard newspaper reported.
-With New Age input
