RIYADH — The Ministry of Labor clarified on Sunday that it has not issued any new regulations with regard to limiting expatriates' stay in the Kingdom and curtailing some of the benefits enjoyed by them. Ahmed Al-Humaidan, deputy minister of labor, said that what are being circulated (in the media) as the ministry's new decisions were simply draft proposals that the ministry floated for discussion on its website and no final decisions have been taken in this regard, the Saudi Press Agency reported. In a bid to expand the Nitaqat Saudization system with an objective of creating more jobs for citizens with higher salaries and reducing the number of expatriates, the ministry posted new proposals on its portal called “Together we improve.” The ministry asked employers and labor committees to post their views in this regard. Earlier this month, Minister of Labor Adel Fakeih announced the postponement of the third phase of the Nitaqat Saudization program which was scheduled to start on April 20. He said the decision has been taken in the public interest and to give employers and employees in the private sector more time to adjust to the new amendments in the Labor Law approved recently by the Council of Ministers. The business community had been urging the ministry to delay the third phase of Nitaqat that calls for further increasing the percentage of Saudis working in the private sector by raising the minimum Saudization requirements for many sectors, implementing new calculation methods, and making changes in the system of incentives. The private sector had voiced apprehensions that a quick implementation of the third phase would have the adverse impact on the Kingdom's financial, retail and wholesale, construction and manufacturing sectors. The Council of Saudi Chambers (CSC) said that it feared that raising of the Saudization rate at this time would have a negative impact on the job market as companies would not be able to get an adequate number of Saudi workers, especially for SMEs. According to the postponed third phase of Nitaqat, the downstream industries need to raise the Saudization rate from 25 percent to 41 percent, big retail and wholesale firms from 29 percent to 44 percent and other big commercial establishments from 29 percent to 66 percent. It also wants small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to increase the number of Saudi workers gradually within a timeframe.
