RIYADH: The Ministry of Labor intends to open 18 offices across the Kingdom where job seekers can register for the “Incentive” unemployment benefits program and private sector employers can seek out potential staff. Ahmad Al-Humaidan, the Ministry of Labor's Deputy Minister for Worker's Affairs, told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that the offices would allow unemployed persons and potential employers to access the databases and make the search for jobs and staff easier. Al-Humaidan made the remarks following a meeting with the business community at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry to discuss the “Hafiz” – Incentive – job seekers program as well as the new “Nitaqat” measures for Saudization which impose visa restrictions on private firms for the employment of non-Saudis. The deputy minister warned against “over-optimism”, however, in the fight against unemployment. “Failures and shortcomings occur in the work of labor offices,” he said. “I'll neither absolve nor defend the ministry in that respect, but a new plan is in place for the improvement of services at the offices and 98 percent of them will go electronic.” He said that the issue of foreign workers absconding from their employers is “not a task of the ministry”. “We are only involved in the area of contracting,” Al-Humaidan said. “We cannot guarantee that the employees will stay with the employer once they've been recruited. There are Saudis who deliberately make employee absconsion easier and sometimes employ them themselves, and unfortunately fines have not had an effect and the market is rife with offenses and violations.”
