POEA Starts Processing Household Helpers for Japan

By Maia Lopez

JAPAN is now open to accepting Filipino household helpers, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration said.

POEA administrator Hans Cacdac said they will start processing applications by June 19.

Applicants should have a one-year experience in housekeeping and must have a Level 2 Certification from a TESDA-accredited training center.

Fluency in Nihonggo is also required.

Cacdac said instead of domestic helpers, successful applicants will be called housekeepers.

While applicants will be exempted from placement fees, language training fees, and transportation fares, they will shoulder the cost of the passports, clearances, preliminary medical examination, and PhilHealth and Pag-ibig membership fees.

Cacdac said hired housekeepers will not be staying in their employers’ houses.

Instead, they will be renting their own quarters and will shoulder their own food expenses.

“It is the culture of the Japanese – their houses are not that big and they are not used to having a stranger in their homes,” Cacdac said.

Hired housekeepers will be required to work 40 hours a week or 8 hours a day, with two days off per week.

Employers will follow the minimum wage in the Kanagawa Prefecture, where gross pay would be around P58,565.38.

The net payment, after food expenses and house rental, would be around P25,736. There will also be a contract to be signed by the recruiter and the employer to protect hired housekeepers.

“There is a check and balance. Japan has the Third Party Labor Management Council in Kanagawa Prefecture,” Cacdac said.

In 2015, over 200,000 Filipinos were issued Japanese visas, making them the second nationality next to the Chinese to be issued the most number of visas by the Japanese government.

(Source: HongKongNews.com.hk)