Finding a house maid in Yangon

For foreigners to Myanmar, hiring a house maid is an important thing to do in Myanmar. Not only the house maid should be a skilled one, she should also be reliable and honest. Hiring a house maid in Myanmar is not as straight forward as you migh think, as there are no formal agencies to handle such kind of things. However, there are some informations available for you that would aid you in finding a good house maid in Myanmar.

The following suggestion and information assume that you are living in Yangon (Rangoon) and trying to find a house maid in Yangon.

General Information

• First of all it’s difficult to find a house maid and more difficult to find a good one. However, for foreigners, since they can pay more (than locals) they tends to get qualify maids.

• Ethnic maids are among the highest scored because of their personality (fair skin, decent looking), sincerity, loyalty and cleverness.

• It is better to keep several single tasking maids; one for cook, one for cleaning and one for babysitting.

• But if your family size is small, let’s say maximum 3, you can keep a multi tasking maid who do both cooking and cleaning but you have to pay more than single tasking one.

• Mostly, hiring a maid is done through contacts by means of mouth to mouth advertising.

• But there are some Christian missions or churches acting like agent service to help the ladies from remote areas to get a job as house maids.

• There are some private brokers also but they are not much reliable.

• The best way to get a maid is through contacts from people (driver, maid, cooks, etc) who are currently working at other foreigner friend’s houses.

• There are some maids who have been working for foreigners for many years that they are well qualified. Some of them can even cook European, Western foods & Japanese foods and communicable in English.

Fees/salary

• For well qualified cooks, salary is over US$ 100 per month up to US$ 300 per month.

• For experienced maid (cleaning & washing) salary is around US$ 50 to 80 per month.

• You can get an inexperienced maid at around US$ 30 to 40 per month.

• The salary of maids for locals is much lower than above but foreigners have to pay more naturally (as they are expected to have more money).

• You can pay the salary of the maids either in FEC or equivalent Kyat.

Hiring Tips

• Try to search one through your contacts (colleagues, their driver, etc) and community services (like Christian missions).

• You can also try local employment agencies but you will be bind by contract and service charge. However, it is usually the easiest way.

• Make sure you really know the source of your contacts to get reliable maids because there are always bad people on earth.

• There is no standard for terms and conditions for work, everything is by negotiation. Make sure both of you agree upon terms and conditions of work before hiring.

• Make sure you give fair quality of life as they are your staffs, not servants. There are also government organizations who are watching for abuses of maids.

• Lastly, don’t be too mean if you want experienced maid. You will get what you paid for.

This post is contributed by our guest contributor Myo Thaw.

Related posts:

1. Living in Yangon (Rangoon) as an expatriate
2. Small friendly guest house in Bagan
3. A visit to Myanmar house – Dos and Don’ts
4. Inleh Bo Teh (Middle of the lake Official Guest House)