Saudi Gazette report RIYADH — Forcing employees to work nine hours a day is against international labor agreements, a number of economic experts have said while discussing possible scenarios of implementing a two-day weekend in the private sector. The private sector had suggested a nine-hour working day to compensate for the two-day weekend. The experts said this is not attainable, as international work agreements state that working hours should not exceed 48 hours a week and 8 hours a day. Fahd Bin Jumaah said implementing this decision would mean a 40-hour working week. It could also mean an average working week of 40 hours that did not exceed 48 hours, he told Al-Riyadh Arabic daily. The third possibility would be a 40-hour working week with one day off for all employees and the other day to be determined according to business requirements. Sunday is a day-off in the majority of countries. Jumaah believed that a two-day weekend would increase expatriate transfers outside the Kingdom. This is because businessmen would have to pay overtime for employees to cover the extra day-off. He said employees' output decreases after eight hours and is considered an exploitation of employees. Economist Abdulrahman Al-Qahtani said a two-day weekend has become a necessity to attract Saudis to work in the private sector. He said there are 973,200 Saudis employed in the private sector. Al-Qahtani believes implementation of the two-day weekend decision will result in increasing this number to 1.5 million.
