Premier Recruitment Ltd, Uganda’s fast-growing labour recruitment company has sent its third batch of five Ugandan ladies (in featured photo) to work as domestic workers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in a space of less than two months.
They left Entebbe International Airport for the Middle East country on Tuesday.
The labour exporting agency entered Uganda’s private labour recruitment market late last year.
Rajiv Ruparelia, the Chief Executive Officer of Premier Recruitment told Business Focus that they are happy to play part in finding lucrative jobs for the unemployed Ugandan youths.
He said the ladies have a two- year contract (renewable) and each one of them will be pocketing Shs900,000 monthly in addition to other key benefits.
Premier is licensed by Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development for Internal Recruitment and a member of the Uganda Association of External Recruitment Agencies.
In an earlier interview, Rajiv said the Uganda labour externalisation industry is a vital source of livelihood for both the employees and their families and a major pillar of the economy that ought to be protected by all the stakeholders and bad apples weeded out.
“Uganda has a competitive advantage over a number of African countries because of our good English that we need to leverage just like our neighbours in Kenya. According to the World Bank and IMF Balance of Payments as well as Bank of Uganda data, personal remittances to Uganda have grown by 174.6% from $451.6 million (UGX1.66 trillion) in 2007 to $1.24billion (UGX4.5 trillion) in 2017, but our neighbours, Kenya raked in $1.962 billion (UGX7.2 trillion) in 2017 and $2.5 billion (UGX9.2 trillion) in 2018,” noted Rajiv.
He added: “Diaspora remittances to Uganda are equivalent to 30% of Uganda’s traditional export earnings- $3.4bn (UGX12.5 trillion) in 2017 and $3.6bn (UGX13.2 trillion) in 2018 and almost 3 times bigger than coffee export receipts- $555.4m (UGX2 trillion) in 2017 and $436.4m (UGX1.6 trillion) in 2018. Protecting and harnessing more value from this vital sector should be the responsibility of everyone.”
Rajiv also said, beyond direct economic gains, labour externalization had other benefits such skills transfer, mobilization of capital for investment and improving household incomes and standards of living for their dependents back home.
Uganda is the second biggest destination of personal remittances in the East African region after Kenya according to the World Bank and IMF balance of payments data.
Remittances to Uganda have grown by 174.6% from $451.6 million (UGX1.66 trillion) in 2007 to $1.24billion (UGX4.5 trillion) in 2017. Comparatively, Kenya raked in $1.962 billion (UGX7.2 trillion) in 2017 and $2.5 billion (UGX9.2 trillion) in 2018.
$1.24 billion (UGX4.5 trillion) industry
The Bank of Uganda, Personal Transfers Survey 2017 indicated that the Middle East was the second biggest source of remittances to Uganda (28.6%) after Africa (29%). Europe (20.7%) and North/South America (18.41%) were third and fourth respectively.
According to the Uganda Association for External Recruitment Agencies, there are 140,000 skilled and semi-skilled Ugandans working in the Middle East as blue-collar professionals as well as technicians, security personnel, porters, drivers, cleaners, housekeepers, catering and hospitality personnel.
Domestic workers only account for about 30%. The survey also showed that remittances benefitted up to 820,000 households and that $6 out of every $10 received, went to financing household expenses and education.
