The Ministry of Labor is tenacious on its decision to ban foreign recruitment from Bangladesh for a number of careers, said Deputy Minister of Labor Dr. Abdulwahed Al-Homaid during the contractors meeting at Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry over the weekend. Careers in domestic work and agriculture are targeted by the ministry's decision, but recruitment of physicians, engineers, maintenance and cleaning workers, and for employment in the government will remain unchanged, he told Al-Watan newspaper. The ministry has recently provided a large number of facilities to the contracting sector to boost its growing business amid a booming economy. The percentage of Saudization in the contracting sector is still hanging at 10 percent as opposed to an average of 30% in other sectors. Addressing complaints from small business contractors about foreign investors being given full support at the expense of their Saudi counterparts, particularly about visa issuance, Al-Homaid wholeheartedly denied such an allegation. But he gave a reason for a possible misunderstanding. “Small contracting business, especially the new ones, sometimes pose a legal problem for the Ministry of Labor because of the growing trend of submitting applications to regulate contracting businesses owned by people who are not contractors per se, but rather are in the market to hire their foreign workers to a third party for sizable commissions,” he said. Al-Homaid denied that visas are issued to foreign contractors and investors prior to being awarded any contracts, explaining that these contractors and investors are required to present supporting documents issued by project owners. When asked about a study was conducted to recommend the cancellation of the current sponsor system and replace it by the government as the sole sponsor for all workers already existing or coming the Kingdom, Al-Homaid said a decision was issued to create hiring companies to recruit workers who can be good targets for a job search by businesses in the Kingdom. To do the mission satisfactorily, recruiting companies will establish training centers in the countries from which workforce is brought into the Kingdom, he said. The advanced preparation of the workforce for the labor market in the Kingdom would then guarantee a trained and qualified workers who would come here for targeted jobs with specific employers, he said. “The word sponsor was taken out of the legal terminology of the Minister of Labor and has been replaced with the word employer,” he said. Any worker coming to the Kingdom should have known references back home while the employer here will be the sole responsible for the worker, he added. When asked about the operational start-up of hiring companies, Al-Homaid said that the resolution of the Council of Ministers to regulate these companies has given priority to current recruitment firms to start hiring. That will eventually change their old ways of doing business by bringing in foreign labor with no training or known references. Current recruitment firms have reportedly shown reluctance to go ahead with the new guidelines of the Ministry of Labor. Whether new proposed hiring companies would be joint-stock or private, Al-Homaid said it is early to tell, but they would be big companies to start up training centers and coordinate with the businesses in the Kingdom on their labor needs. As a start, he said, the companies licensed would be limited until the program has picked up steam.
