The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on Saturday suspended recruitment of single male domestic workers from Bangladesh temporarily.
The decision was taken by the Saudi Labour and Social Development Ministry.
The ministry has asked applicants (mainly Saudi citizens) to search for workers of other nationalities through the Mosaned website, according to a news item carried by online news portal of the Arab News on the day.
The ministry has also limited recruitment of single non-Bangladeshi male employees to three categories — drivers, household workers, and nurses.
"The permission to bring in male domestic workers from other countries is still subject to recruitment controls and the marital status of the applicants," the report said.  
Unmarried applicants, wishing to recruit male Bangladeshi household workers, said some of their requests were repeatedly denied despite being issued application numbers, the report mentioned.
They were given the option of recruiting from other countries due to non-availability of Saudi visas for Bangladesh, it added.
Last year, the ministry permitted recruitment of male and female Bangladeshi domestic workers once again after it was suspended for nearly eight years.
The ban was imposed by the Saudi government in 2008.
Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia signed a recruitment agreement last month.
Under the accord, Saudi Arabia agreed to allow close male relatives to accompany female workers from Bangladesh taking up jobs in the kingdom. None was to pay for travel to Saudi Arabia. Companies, employing workers, were supposed to pay for their air travel, the agreement said.
Saudi Arabia had expressed its interest to recruit 200,000 female workers, mostly housemaids, from Bangladesh, according to the Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry.
A total of 555,881 Bangladeshis got jobs abroad in 2015. Of them, 103,707 were females.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) has termed the KSA decision as temporary.
"We think, the decision could not affect us much. If we are able to send manpower to other different sectors in Saudi Arabia, then it will benefit us hugely," former senior vice-president of BAIRA Ali Haider Chowdhury told the FE.
He said, nearly 2.5 million Bangladeshis are now employed in Saudi Arabia, contributing around 40 per cent of total remittance earnings of the country.   
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Source: The Financial Express