A central umbrella company for recruitment of expatriates in Riyadh will be announced within a month, a senior official said. Similar companies will be established in Jeddah and Dammam as well, said Waleed Al-Suwaidan, chairman of the Recruitment Committee at Riyadh's Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He said 125 recruitment offices in the capital city have submitted an application to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for their merger into a single, national recruitment company. Each central recruitment company will have an elected board of directors and general assembly, Al-Suwaidan said. Introducing a central recruitment system in the main cities will help better regulate the market and serve the interests of both foreign workers and their employers by clearly laying down their respective rights. Al-Suwaidan cited in particular the long-standing problem of housemaids and drivers fleeing from their employers. He said this would be minimized in the new scheme since the central recruitment companies must organize orientation courses for the housemaids and drivers to help them adjust to the Saudi work environment. Also, these companies will make it obligatory for employers to channel salary payments monthly through local bank accounts of their employers.Salary delay and nonpayment are the main reasons cited by runaway housemaids and drivers. – Okaz __
