When you ask a migrant domestic worker why they came to Hong Kong, the answer is almost always the same. “For my family”, Evangeline told us, a single mother who is working to put her two daughters through school. Many come with the hope of providing a better life for their families back home and investing in their own futures. Migration is often seen as a way to lift their families out of poverty where the wages they earn abroad can be 6 to 10 times more than the wages they earn back home.
“It feels surreal to find a good agency that has no salary deduction policy.” Gloria, an Indonesian domestic worker, told us. Sadly, the majority of the migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong are hired through agencies charging excessive and illegal fees for job placement, thereby forcing workers into debt. Workers pay agencies an average of HK$6,200 to HK$8,500 in order to find a job abroad, forgoing approximately 6 to 8 months of their monthly salaries in the country of destination. This has huge implications for workers and their families back home as an average of four to five family members rely on them to provide for education and household expenses. If they are placed in an abusive working situation, they are less likely to be able to leave as they would have to pay additional agency fees in order to secure new employment. Debt bondgate commonly results in conditions of forced labor for migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, with more than 80% of surveyed workers in the city indicating that they are in debt, often from the recruitment process.
We sought to address this and opened Fair Employment Agency (FEA) in 2014, an ethical recruitment agency committed to never charging placement fees to workers. Workers have access to their full earning potential, experience greater economic mobility, and focus on their jobs better when they are not under debt bondage. “[I’m] very fortunate… to find Fair Agency as my agency,” Gloria continued. “This is my third deployment to HK and I can say this is the best one. I can have my full salary, and my welfare here is being taken care of by Fair. It is so hard to find a good agency like this.” FEA has placed over 8,000 workers to date without charging placement fees, saving workers HK$38.5 million in fees between 2014-2022. Employers also benefit from our service when they are matched with workers who are suited to their needs. Unlike other agencies that are incentivized on the attrition and high churn of workers, we provided quality matches, transparency in fees, and dedicated client care servicing for the duration of the employment contract. At FEA, we are demonstrating every day that ethical recruitment is good for the worker, good for the employer, and good for the local HK economy.
