Learn Cantonese, envoy tells maids
Language skills one reason Filipinos are missing out to Indonesians, says attache
The Philippines' top labour representative in the city has urged Filipino domestic helpers to learn Cantonese to help reverse the continuing drop in their numbers as locals turn to Indonesian helpers.
Labour attache Bernardino Julve said the fall in the number of Filipino maids coincided with an increase in the number of Indonesian maids learning Cantonese before they come to Hong Kong.
But Mr Julve also said Filipino maids' attitude of standing up for their rights could have backfired.
They were more likely to complain about their conditions than Indonesians. Some studies also had shown that Indonesian maids were being underpaid.
Immigration Department figures show there were 122,160 Filipino maids in Hong Kong in July, down 33,290, or 21 per cent, from a high of 155,450 in December 2001.
The number of Indonesian helpers has grown 25 per cent over the same period, from 68,880 in 2001 to 85,930 in July.
The decline has so worried Filipino officials that Mr Julve began a round of consultations in Hong Kong and Manila to find a solution.
He said Indonesian maids had three to six months of live-in training in household work and were also trained in Cantonese. But Filipino helpers' training ran for between one and 14 days and included no instruction in Cantonese.
'That is why Indonesians are preferred over Filipinos,' Mr Julve said. 'They speak basic Cantonese. Unfortunately our new arrivals do not know how. Cantonese is not part of the training back home and their training period is so short.'
Training centres for contract workers should be strengthened so the workers came out 'highly qualified and highly skilled'. Mr Julve had heard some recruitment agencies were planning to set up training centres in Hong Kong.
'Hopefully we will be able to put our minds together and come up with possible measures to arrest this problem,' he said.
But he believed the decline was more to do with the economic slowdown and the Sars outbreak last year than the language issue.
Hirings in the past two months would be crucial to knowing if a reversal was on the way.
'I am hoping that with the end of the summer break, August to September figures will increase as traditionally employers start hiring again in anticipation of the new school year,' Mr Julve said.
Meanwhile, United Filipinos in Hong Kong urged Philippine consul-general Corazon Belmonte-Jover to call a meeting with community leaders on plans to close the consulate on Sundays.
'The closure of the consulate would mean denial of service to about 2,000 workers every Sunday,' the group's secretary-general, Eman Villanueva, said.
The consulate is asking maids whether they would mind reverting to Monday to Friday opening hours to cut costs and help ease the Philippine government's huge budget deficit.
