The Ministry of Labor (MoL) has reduced the duration of expats residence for the purpose of renewing labor licenses to four years from six, effective next new lunar year with a plan to reduce it to two years, effective the seventh month of next lunar year, to stimulate enterprises on yellow zones to deal directly and widely with the problem of employing Saudi job-seekers and hire Saudi applicants to help the companies to move to safe green and plutonian zones, it was officially reported today. The Director of the Information Center at the MoL Tayseer Al-Mufrej said the decision will deprive yellow-zoned companies from renewing Iqama licenses of expat workers, once any of those workers has joined his company four years ago or more inside the Kingdom, regardless of the period the expat has experienced with the current business owner of a yellow company. The counting of the four years starts with the date of granting him the first working license, the report said. Al-Mufrej explained that the decision aims at upgrading the competitiveness of companies within Nitagt (zones) program as the ministry has in the past cut off a number of grants usually offered to the yellow and/or red zone companies. According to the regulations, companies falling in the yellow-zone companies will be barred from receiving new visa applications, enjoying transference of expats moving to them from others, changing their positions, issuing new work licenses for their expats and, most recently, the ability to renew working licenses for expats who were working with them for four years.
