KUALA LUMPUR, April 25 — Malaysians keen to hire a maid from Indonesia will not be able to get one immediately after Hari Raya Puasa as suggested previously.
Three staffing agencies indicated that the wait will take at least three months, The Star reported today.
“Although the MoU was signed in early April, there is currently no application for a new Indonesian domestic helper because the online application system has yet to be set up,” Julian Tan, a job agency consulting director was quoted as saying, referring to the latest deal inked by Malaysia with Indonesia to recruit Indonesian citizens as household workers here.
He added that the three-month wait was the time needed to process the application for maids before the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020.
National Association of Human Resources Malaysia president Zarina Ismail was also sceptical that the Malaysia-Indonesia bilateral deal would see a massive wave of Indonesian maids here so soon.
“It is quite impossible that 10,000 maids will be arriving after Hari Raya. The one-month celebration is just about nine days away,” she told The Star.
Zarina said the recruitment process is lengthy and the online Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS) is still having teething problems.
She added that there is a massive backlog of applications at the Immigration Department in Selangor that need to be dealt with first.
Zarina and another industry representative Suresh Tan, vice-president of Association of Employment Agencies Malaysia, said that agencies were looking to recruit maids from other countries like Sri Lanka.
However, Julian indicated that this alternative is unlikely to pan out too.
“The FWCMS in Sri Lanka is not working, so no applications can be made even if you want to hire a maid from there,” he was quoted as saying.
Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan previously said 10,000 maids from Indonesia would be here soon after signing the bilateral deal to recruit and protect the republic’s citizens hired as domestic helpers.
Indonesian workers are popular in Malaysia due to the similarities with local language, culture and customs.
