Saudi Arabia to relax foreign workers’ sponsorship terms in March ’21

Riyadh, November 4

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday introduced new plans to ease international employees’ contractual restrictions, abolishing a controversial seven-decade-old sponsorship system generally known as kafala.

The plans, to take impact in March 2021, intention to make the Saudi labour market extra enticing, the deputy minister for human assets stated, by granting international employees the best to vary jobs and go away the nation with out employers’ permission.

“Through this initiative we aim to build an attractive labour market and improve the working environment,”  Abdullah bin Nasser Abuthunain instructed reporters.

Saudi Arabia, which chairs the Group of 20 main economies (G20) this 12 months, is looking for to spice up its non-public sector, a part of an formidable plan to diversify its oil-dependent economic system.

The transfer will assist appeal to high-skilled employees and assist create extra jobs for Saudi nationals, Sattam Alharbi, deputy minister for improvement of the work atmosphere, instructed Reuters in a cellphone interview, including that hiring could be based mostly on employees’ effectivity.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 reform plan is a package deal of financial and social insurance policies designed to free the dominion from reliance on oil exports.

The at the moment relevant kafala system typically binds a migrant employee to 1 employer. Rights teams, together with Amnesty International, have been calling on Saudi authorities to finish that system which leaves employees susceptible to abuses.

“The term kafala does not officially exist in Saudi labour laws since more than 20 years ago; however, there were many wrong practices of it that helped breach the contractual relation,” Alharbi stated.

The new initiative will base the relation between employers and employees on a typical contract that needs to be licensed by the federal government, and can enable employees to use instantly for companies by way of an e-government portal, as an alternative of a compulsory employers’ approval.

The ministry goals to certify the contracts of all international employees by the top of the primary quarter of 2021. Reuters