RIYADH: ARAB NEWS Friday 21 June 2013 Last Update 22 June 2013 2:05 am The Ministry of Labor has urged expatriates to use its free online services to change their professions. Deputy Minister of Labor Mufrej Al-Haqbani said expatriates working illegally in the Kingdom must hurry to correct their status because the grace period will end in just 13 days. In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency, Al-Haqbani said all workers can use the service free of charge on the ministry’s website irrespective of the Nitaqat category of an establishment. Expatriate workers who are absent from work and reported as runaways, or whose residency or work permits have expired, can correct their status either by returning to their existing employers if acceptable to both parties, or transfer to new employers without the consent of their existing employers. The only condition in such cases is that the new employer should not permit the worker to leave for the first 90 days. “Any rights dispute between the worker and his existing employer will be settled by special legal establishments,” Al-Haqbani said. He said another condition is that a transfer of service to a private establishment having 10 employees or more should not lead to that company losing its Green Zone rating. With regard to the number of expatriates a private establishment can absorb, the minister said no more than four workers can be transferred to a micro establishment, where the number of expatriate workers should not exceed nine. No more than four domestic workers should be transferred to a family, and no more than four domestic workers should be transferred to a Green Zone establishment which has 10 or more employers, or result in it being downgraded. A micro establishment should employ at least one Saudi worker, who could be the employer himself or another Saudi, for a minimum monthly wage of SR 3,000. The job categories reserved for Saudi citizens include senior human resources officials, receptionists, cashiers, security guards, liaison officers, customs clearing agents, workers in women’s accessories and personnel directors. Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Passports is hoping that its new online services starting next week will help reduce overcrowding at its offices around the country. The Kingdom’s passport offices have been inundated with expatriates trying to rectify their status before the July 3 deadline. Col. Khaled Seikhan, director of information technology at the directorate, said the “Ebshir” program starts receiving applications next week. It will allow for the issuing and cancellation of exit visas, exit and re-entry visas, and final exit visas for employers who have 100 or fewer than 100 workers. The Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that the program will serve about 1.2 million companies. “The rest of the passport services will be activated shortly. This will allow employers or citizens to process documents from their home or workplace, and even from outside the country, when they log in via the ministry’s website ...” Seikhan said. He was briefing the chamber yesterday about the system that links the passport directorate with the ministries of labor and health. The chamber’s president, Abdel Rahman Al-Zamil, said the system would help workers rectify their status, protects the rights of workers and employers, and eliminates “all forms of fraud and confusion.”
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 07:03:09 +0000
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