Saudi Arabia penalises hundreds of employers over house labour breaches
Employers are accused of allowing their employees to engage in unauthorised work
Cairo: Saudi Arabia has issued 568 decisions against employers for violations of domestic labour regulations. The penalised employers were accused of allowing their employees to engage in unauthorised work.
These violations were exposed by the Ministry of Human Resources, which filed claims against the employers.
The penalties included 281 decisions preventing some employers from hiring, while 287 decisions imposed fines, according to Saudi news agency SPA. No timeframe for these decisions was provided.
The ministry urged all Saudi citizens and expatriates to avoid dealing with or cooperating with violating workers to prevent penalties. Recently, Saudi labor authorities have sought to regulate the domestic labor market.
To this end, the Ministry of Human Resources launched Musaned, a platform for domestic labor affairs, to inform customers about their rights, duties, and services, including visa issuance, recruitment requests, and contracts between employers and workers. The ministry emphasises that contracting should occur via Musaned, the official recruitment platform.
Last October, Saudi Arabia unveiled new rules for employing domestic workers, setting the minimum age at 21 to preserve contractual rights.
The regulations state that dues owed to workers, or their heirs, are considered first-degree debts. Contracts must have a fixed duration; if not, they will be deemed renewable for one year from the worker’s start date.