Factories still hire expats, flouting laws

By Ibrahim Naffee
Sunday, February 02, 2014

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Many industrial factories in Jeddah continue to hire expat workers temporarily and in violation of the labor laws in a bid to increase their productivity at low cost. Factory owners exploit the difficult situation of the expat workers by paying them meager salaries and refusing to transfer their iqamas to their sponsorship.

Some of the workers are not interested in demanding their rights either but would rather continue working for very low wages. Most of these expats are Somali or Pakistani nationals and prefer to work temporarily in the industrial factories in Jeddah to earn a bit of money.

Factory owners say they have no time to look for trained and qualified Saudis as they face work deadlines to deliver clients’ orders as soon as possible. Therefore, factory owners often cover up for their illegal expat labor force and conceal them from the inspectors of the Labor Office.

“Owing to the high demand of our clients to deliver our products, we have previously hired expat workers to increase our productivity. However, the human resources departments of factories now check official documents of the laborers such as the iqama before allowing them to work. So, we have stopped hiring expat workers who have not transferred their sponsorships,” said Ali Hakeem, manager of the HR department of a private sector company.

“Sometimes, it is hard to transfer the sponsorships of expat workers because of some complicated procedure in the labor office. So we resort to depending on part-timers who won’t be able to transfer their sponsorships to the factory. It also takes a lot of time to hire trained Saudis whereas professional expats work quickly and efficiently and for low salaries,” he added.

The labor office often lands surprise visits at factories to check the expat workers’ official documents. So a number of factory owners have corrected their workers’ job status to avoid punitive action.
According to statistics, the central region of the Kingdom has around 2,513 plants with a total capital of SR101.1 billion.

The labor laws in the Kingdom have banned the hiring of expatriate workers without official and valid documents. Private sector companies must also transfer the sponsorship of their foreign workers and sign unambiguous contracts with them.

“I was working in an industrial factory located in south Jeddah. The factory was paying only SR1,200 per month. It refused to transfer my sponsorship. However, I continued working in this factory hoping to get my full rights. But the company dismissed me on the grounds that it does not need my services any more,” said Mahmoud Mosa, a Somali resident who is looking for a job in a factory.

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