Maids from Bangladesh and Myanmar -- brought to the city to bolster a shrinking workforce -- are returning home just months after arriving, aggravating a shortage of domestic helps, according to online scmp.com Monday.
In addition, agencies supplying maids report 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 a month they get in Hong Kong.
There are about 320,000 helpers in the city. About half are from the Philippines and most of the rest from Indonesia, with small numbers from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Employment agencies have said that previously, prospective employers were given a choice of several workers to hire, but now availability is so tight they are no longer given a choice.
Six months after the first group of 19 Myanmese arrived in Hong Kong, dozens more have come. But a sixth of them have already returned home, as they could not get used to life here.
The recruitment agency that brought the first group of helps from Bangladesh says that one in five of them has gone home.
Law Yiu-keung, managing director of the Golden Mind Employment Agency, the only one in the city licensed to bring in helps from Myanmar, said 90 had taken jobs in the city, but 14 had 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 imagined before they came," Law said.
He had planned to bring in 2,000 Myanmese helpers in the first year. However, only 90 have arrived because of the lengthy approval process each worker has to go through.
