Thursday, June 14, 2012

Indonesian Maids

Indonesia allows its citizens to work in Malaysia as maids again.  However, they are allowed to do only one of the four following duties: household chores, looking after children, looking after elderly or cooking.  They are to be paid RM700 or more.  It is interesting.  In Indonesia, the maids actually do only one duty.  However, they are paid a lot less.  So to work in Malaysia, they are to be paid 5 or 6 times more for the same amount of work.

Today, the papers say it is a misunderstanding on the use of language. There is no requirements for Malaysia to make sure their Indonesian maids work on one duty only.  I know in Indonesia, the rich and middle class have an army of servants to service their household.  Some kids have their own chauffeurs too.  Due to the currency and value of earnings, all maids despite the low pay in the countries they work in, actually has high spending power back at home country.  This is like arbitrage pulling in people from low wage countries to high wage countries.

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