service of one local cleaning service, but may provide more work for recession-hit Bermudians.

One cleaning company said tougher rules are forcing it to shut down maid service operations by the end of this month, because it could find no Bermudians to replace the part-time Portuguese women it previously used.

But another company reported that, thanks to the recession, there was no shortage of Bermudians looking for work as domestic maids.

ACE Cleaning Services has notified its clients that it will shut down its maid service at the end of this month -- though it will keep its commercial cleaning and landscaping operations.

Operations manager Mrs. Laura Sousa said the Immigration Department had tightened up, and all the company's maids' work permits expired at the same time.

She said the Immigration Department had told the company that no more part-time work permits would be issued for domestic cleaners, and no part-time permits could be converted to full-time permits.

"All our maids were Portuguese part-timers,'' she said. "We had to let six to ten Portuguese maids go.'' She said the company ran advertisements for Bermudian maids in the newspaper but received just two applications, one of whom was hired.

Mrs. Sousa said ACE had no problems finding Bermudians for commercial cleaning jobs. That generally involves night work, she said, and Bermudians take the positions as second jobs.

But she it seemed almost impossible to find Bermudians to work as maids, which often entailed part-time or on-call work. The Portuguese maids were generally married to Portuguese men working in Bermuda, she said.

Mrs. Grace Bell MP, who operates the Houseprouds home cleaning business, said she recently received 25 applications for six positions, and most of the applications came from Bermudians were willing and able to do the job.

The key, she said, was not to demand written applications. "It isn't that these people aren't clever enough to write in,'' she said. "It's just that they are thrown off by it.

"In the past it was hard to get domestic workers,'' Mrs. Bell said. "That's not the case now, with redundancies.

"...Even if there aren't Bermudians willing to do the work -- and I know that's not the case -- there are non-Bermudian spouses of Bermudians, and they really haven't had much of a shot at any kind of work. And in this recession, I'm sure they are out there.'' People must be prepared to meet the demands of the job, Mrs. Bell said. If a driver's licence is required, for instance, they must obtain one, or if their employer needs them early in the morning they must be prepared to be at work on time.

But a hard-working domestic worker can make good money, Mrs. Bell said. "Over my 10 years in the business, there has always been a core of people who are genuine about this work and do well.''