Recruitment of nurses to Saudi Arabia may resume soon

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the state government officials clearing apprehensions of the Saudi officials, recruitment of nurses to the kingdom is likely to resume soon.

Further kindling hopes of nurses aspiring jobs abroad, a Kuwaiti delegation is expected here this month and finalise modalities of recruitment.

Saudi authorities had raised some concerns about the new recruitment process on e-Migrate and their major concern was whether the three authorised state-run agencies could handle the demand.

“We clarified that 55,000 nurses have already registered with the two agencies in Kerala - NORKA-Roots and Overseas Development and Employ ment Promotion Consultants (ODEPC). The Saudi requirement would be only around 6,000 annually," said labour and employment principal secretary Tom Jose.

Other concerns raised by Saudi delegation led by Ambassador Saud Alsati include lack of presence of NORKA-Roots and ODEPC elsewhere. But the state delegation pointed out that significant chunk of nurses were from Kerala and NORKA-Roots and ODEPC are in the process of setting up offices in other major cities too.

"We hope the Saudi authorities were quite convinced of the situations and hence they would place demand for nurses through the e-Migrate portal," said Mr Jose.