Finding Maids in Dubai

Aptly put across by the above meme,who doesn’t want domestic help, and desperately so!

If you have recently moved to Dubai from a Western country, you might have heard of tales about how it is possible to get plenty of domestic help in Dubai, while if you are from one of the Asian countries, you must have moved hoping you could ship your domestic bai here.

Whatever your needs and your budget, Dubai does offer customized help.

Full time maids

In case you have a a family with kids and both working couple, you might want to have a full time maid/nanny in your house. You can sponsor a full time maid from your own country at a pre-agreed salary or engage one of the maid agencies in Dubai to find you one from India, Phillipines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan or African countries. The following things need to be born in mind while hiring a full time maid:

• Certain countries define the minimum salary requirement for maids to be sponsored in UAE. For example, as per Indian embassy in Dubai, the minimum salary per month for an Indian maid is AED1,000. However, this is only the official rate and actual salaries may be higher
• In Dubai, in order to sponsor a maid, the sponsor is required to to have a minimum monthly salary of AED6,000 and show a lease agreement for an apartment with a separate maid room and bathroom
• A deposit is required to be made for sponsoring a made. For example, to sponsor an Indian maid, a deposit of around AED9,000 needs to be made
• You might be required to fund annual two-way airfare to their home country
• If you are engaging an agency to find a maid for you, they will charge a one time placement fee which may vary depending upon your negotiation skills

Part time maids

For those with smaller families and houses, a full time maid may be an extravagance and you might only want only a couple of hours of help every week. In that case you can turn to professional agencies providing part time cleaning services. Alternatively you can look at ads on Dubizzle for people seeking part-time jobs. You may even consider placing a free online ad on Gulfnews or Dubizzle for part time maids. Hiring part-time maids has its own pros and cons:

• There is no obligation in terms of visa sponsorship cost, deposit or accomodation
• Flexibility in terms of number of hours per week
• Most agencies charge on an hourly basis ranging between AED25-40 per hour
• Often there is a clause of minimum 3 to 4 hours of work at one booking. However, some agencies might have this clause only for the weekends
• Some agencies provide cleaning supplies while most require you to provide with equipment and supplies for your house
• Mostly all services are included other than cooking and hand washing clothes. Cooks need to be hired separately
• I wouldn’t vouch for ironing though, since the quality of their ironing isn’t great and takes way too much time. It might be cheaper to get it done from a luandry service
• In certain areas (old Dubai), some agencies and mostly individuals may agree for a monthly payment instead of per hour charge, which may turn out to be cheaper
• Often online deals on Groupon or cobone provide discount on these maid services which might turn out to be as low as AED15 per hour after discount

In case you are looking for baby sitters, often housewives provide babysitting in their own house. So look for ads on Dubizzle for women offering these services in your area.

It is relatively easier and cheaper to get maids in Old Dubai simply because of more supply. Also, keep in mind, that there are plenty of illegal immigrants out there who are looking for part time small jobs and may come much cheaper than official rates, but end of the day, they are illegal and if caught, might land the employer in huge fines.

Also, if you and your spouse are both working full time and can have the maid over only during weekends, it might be a better idea to make a booking at least a week or two in advance since most of the agencies are overbooked during weekends (which is only Saturday since they don’t work on Fridays). Their working hours are normally 8am until around 6pm to 8pm in the evening.

Finally, here are contacts of some maid agencies I have utilized before:

1. Smart maid-http://www.smartmaidcleaning.com/aboutus.html – service is good but they forgot about my booking that was made 2 days in advance
2. Maidsontime – http://www.maidsontime.ae/ – really on time!! and good service, polite staff
3. Maple helper services – http://www.camapledubai.com/ – Got through an online deal, punctual, but found the staff slightly slow. Maybe it was intentional due to discounted booking (see my post online deals in Dubai to understand why)
4. Several other independent workers- but they are unpredictable and not necessarilycheaper

I found this link with more useful information on hiring maids in Dubai: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/employment/maid-in-dubai-domestic-danger-1.866967

Please leave a comment if you have any comments, questions and related information for my readers!

Keep Calm!