Cambodian maids to earn at least RM1,020 a month

May 31, 2013

Salaries which start at S$420 (RM1,020.76), and no placement fees from employers. These proposals were part of a document the Cambodian government sent to selected maid agents, as Singapore moves ahead with a pilot scheme to see how well Cambodian maids adapt to life here.

The scheme, which runs until the end of 2015, will see its first batch of 400 maids arrive in July this year.
Cambodia has proposed employment terms for these maids in a memorandum of understanding (MoU), which was sent this week to the six maid agents picked by the Manpower Ministry to recruit the maids.
Workers with no experience will get a minimum of S$420 (RM1,020.76) a month.

Those with experience will be paid at least S$450 (RM1,093.67). If the maid works on all her four rest days each month, she has to be paid another S$70 (RM170.13).

Also, employers will not have to pay the maid’s placement fees upfront, similar to the recruitment scheme Jakarta introduced for Indonesian maids last year.

Under the previous system, employers paid these fees, and recouped them by deducting from the maid’s monthly salary.

The Singapore agents told The Straits Times that the terms were on a par with those for Indonesian and Filipino maids.

Nation Employment managing director Gary Chin, who travelled with the five other Singapore agents to Phnom Penh earlier this month, was impressed by the maids he met.

“Their English is quite good. Some spoke Mandarin and Chinese dialects which they picked up from working in Malaysia,” he said. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network