Responsibility lies with every business, every family and the govt JEDDAH: A meeting held Sunday between the ministers of Labor and Trade and Industry and senior members of the business community reportedly ended with the two ministers rejecting their proposals, prompting two businessmen to leave the table and walk out. The closed door meeting, held on the sidelines of the Jeddah Economic Forum, reportedly heard businessmen propose a law defining the jobs from which women are barred, saying that it would result in more job opportunities for persons of both sexes and a greater selection of positions to which they are suited. They also sought approval for subcontracting in government works to “benefit smaller organizations”. Adel Fakieh, Minister of Labor, maintaining a diplomatic stance and without wishing to divulge too many details of what occurred behind the closed doors, said later that another meeting would have to be held and that Sunday's gathering was organized “too hastily”. Fakieh said that he conveyed to businessmen “everything related to the Royal Order concerning the acceleration of the Saudization process and putting it into effect”. He also said that measures would be taken to speed the issuing of a Saudization law, without setting a date for when they would be implemented. He did say, however, that the measures would include registering the companies that respond to demands to raise rates of Saudization as well as those that fail to comply. One businessman who was at the meeting but did not wish to disclose his name said that Fakieh and Abdullah Zainal, Minister of Trade and Industry, offered during the meeting “nothing worthy of discussion”. “Everything put on the table in the meeting was a waste of time,” he said. “Businessmen have views on a lot of essential problems related to the labor law, and those problems need to be resolved before we enter into these sorts of meetings.” He said that businessmen at the meeting had proposed fundamental solutions to unemployment, such as approval for subcontracting in government works projects and drawing up a list of jobs barred to women and those permitted to both genders. “The minister of labor, however, rejected them all,” he said. By contrast, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Arabic daily reported Monday the Minister of Labor saying that the Saudization measures would be launched “within the next few weeks”. The newspaper reported Fakieh as saying that moves would include “penalties for violations and procedural measures”. Minister Zainal was also quoted as saying that Sunday's meeting was “the first in a round of gatherings to be held by the ministries of Labor and Trade and Industry”. “The business community is demonstrating its commitment to Saudization, as it is a request of the nation,” Zainal said. Saleh Kamel, Chairman of the Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry, who was at the meeting, told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that the approximately eight million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia demonstrated a “lack of integration between Saudis and employment positions due to job unsuitability or other reasons”. “The Saudization of jobs in the private sector began a long time ago with a spirit of patriotism from businessmen and awareness of the consequences of unemployment,” Kamel said. “The responsibility lies with every business, every family and the government, something which requires collaboration and a uniting of efforts.” On the fate of high-earning foreigners should they be replaced in their posts by Saudis, Kamel said they would be “transferred to other suitable positions or given their full rights”. The business community has been making calls for the Human Resources Development Fund to continue backing the private sector for longer than a year to ensure that young Saudis remain in their jobs, and to help provide them with higher salaries in the private sector, and help curb a trend of leaving their positions. Sa'ad Al-Qurashi, Chairman of the Haj and Umrah Committee at the Makkah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that most private sector salaries for Saudis do not even match the figure for monthly job seekers' benefit – SR2,000 – set by King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. “We have outlined a lot of requirements to improve things such as support from the government and the Human Resources Development Fund to private sector companies, the creation of a comprehensive information center for job seekers in every part of the country, and a listing of jobs that require Saudizing,” Al-Qurashi said. On “phantom Saudization”, a practice whereby private sector companies list names of Saudis on their payrolls who either do not exist or do not work at the company in order to achieve set targets, Al-Qurashi said that it was a “consequence of the difficulties of the system of employing Saudis”. He added, however, that businessmen were prepared to raise the minimum salary for Saudis to SR3,000 even without backing from the Human Resources Development Fund. “Saudization is an old and timeless problem. It can't be solved in one meeting, but we have laid out a lot of proposals which the Minister of Labor has promised to look at,” he said. Saudi businessman Hussein Dawoud said that one of the most difficult issues facing businesspeople is current labor law, which was enacted ten years ago. “It contains none of the points that were sought by private sector companies, which has led to a failure to Saudize because of business people's fears,” he said. “A lot of articles in the law require changing, such as the sponsorship law for foreign workers. It needs to be freed up in two years so that sponsorship can be transferred or changed instead of tying it to one sponsor. That would give greater opportunity for Saudization and protect Saudization.”
