Saudi's 'contractual relationship improvement' programme improves work environment

Riyadh: To build an attractive job market, empower human capacities, and improve the work environment in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the ministry of Human Resources and Social Development launched the "contractual relationship improvement" initiative on March 14, 2021, which covers all the expatriate workers in private sectors, with regulations guarantee the rights of both parties in this relationship.

The initiative aims to provide three main services: job mobility, the development of exit, re-entry, and final exit mechanisms, with branched developmental actions to enhance contractual relationships, as a result of the evolving contractual practices between the employer and employee, contractual mechanism, job licences and residency laws, contract termination actions, the convention of job contact into an executive title, the protection of payments, recruitment costs, and the entity who in charge of these costs, and other developments.

After a year of applying this initiative, the number of the benefited workers from different sectors and nationalities reached over 65,000 workers, from more than ten different nationalities, 44% of them were between the ages of 30 and 40, 93% males, and 7% females, the salaries of 65% of the beneficiaries raised up because of the job mobility service that the initiative offers. Also, more than 30,000 enterprises benefited from this initiative, and the most beneficial sectors were: (Residential and non-residential building renovations sector, public housing construction sector, building maintenance services sector, truck drivers and equipment owners' sector, catering and servicing sector).

The initiative ignited competition in the Saudi labour market and equated it with the other international labour markets, it also increased the Saudi labour market classification in the international competitiveness and anti-human trafficking indicators, promoted labour policies according to internationally agreed on organized labour relations practices, prevented labour disputes resulting from parties' disagreement in the contractual relationship, empowered human resources, and attracted excellent capacities to the labour market.

The improvement is not limited to the private sector workers, but it also organized the relationship between the domestic worker and employer with a written job contract approved by the ministry's official platform, the wage protection program is also applied for domestic labourers seeking to enhance their labour market, and to maintain the rights of both parties in the contractual relationship.

These efforts reflect the kingdom's serious and rapid directions to enhance and raise the efficiency of the work environment, by continuing the previous efforts in this field, and launching more initiatives and programs like: "the workers' wage protection program" in the private sector, the (electronic contracts authentication) program, raising awareness on the labour education program, and "Friendly" program to settle labour disputes, as well as adapting the employee rights insurance program, and launching elected workers committees system, and other programs that seek to enhance and improve the work environment and protect all parties in the contractual relationship.

The development and implementation of the "contractual relationship improvement" initiative come from partnering with several government agencies in Saudi Arabia and the complementary roles to achieve the best intranational practices in this field.