RIYADH: Saudi Arabia decides to keep minimum wage rule for Saudi nationals, but not for the millions of foreign workers in the Gulf oil powerhouse, the Labor Ministry said. Foreign workers a minimum monthly salary of 2,500 Saudi riyals (approximately 68000 Pakistani rupees) is likely to set. Saudi nationals working in the private sector minimum wage are expected to set the 5300 Saudi Riyal. According to sources, a ministry presenter said that a plan was in process to keep minimum wage targets for Saudis like teachers or store cashiers as a part of an agenda to make more jobs for people of one of the richest nations in the world.
Labor Minister Ghazi al-Gosaibi said that wages for Saudis in the private sector were disgracefully low-scale. “The speech doesn’t denote we would compel companies to agree to pre-determined salaries,” ministry spokesman Hattab al-Enezy told AFP. “But we would make guidelines for salaries appropriate for the field of work.”
Gosaibi said many businesses were not subsequent closely a “Saudi-ization” program, which needs companies to set aside a number of jobs for citizens, and condemned the wages obtainable to Saudis. “I feel embarrassed that there are 270,000 jobless Saudi young men and a comparable number of jobless Saudi young women in a country that employs over 7 million foreigners,” he said, according to source.
“The level of wages for Saudis in the private sector is an embarrassment,” he said. The 7 million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia makes up over a sector of the country’s total population of 26 million.
