JEDDAH, 3 August 2007 — The Labor Ministry chalked out a plan to expedite a large backlog of labor disputes. The plan includes a scheme to train legal advisers to act as arbitrators in disputes and reconciliation processes.

The parties involved in disputes have been experiencing inordinate delays in settlements at the Labor Ministry’s preliminary and higher committees for handling labor issues and the Labor Office, which is where workers go to file complaints.

Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi made the statement in a meeting to discuss the current dispute on the recruitment of Indonesian maids at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Jeddah on Wednesday.

Referring to the right of a country to make any demand it deems good for its citizens, Al-Gosaibi said: “Every country has the right to demand a pay rise for their workers in another country,” Al-Watan newspaper quoted Al-Gosaibi as saying yesterday.

The minister added that there were, on the other hand, other options available for the Saudis who did not insist on employing Indonesian workers.

The minister also warned the employees who skip out of work that they risk pay deductions and terminations without benefits. These penalties can arise if a worker takes more than 20 days of unpaid leave per year.

Al-Gosaibi denied that any sector in the Kingdom was being exempted from the nationalization of jobs under the Saudization program.

The minister said the ministry had only 300 inspectors to enforce the Saudization regulations and because of the small number mostly inspect larger companies. However, areas — such as the car rental offices, mobile phone shops, real estate offices and other establishments — that have not been inspected systematically in the past would also be subjected to regular inspections shortly, the minister said.

He said that the Saudization efforts would achieve greater success in the future as the ministry had identified the real cause of the unemployment in the Kingdom: the lack of training and qualification. More than 60 percent of the unemployed youth carried low-level educational certificates.

“Such certificates are not worth much these days as they do not guarantee jobs for their bearers. Since training opportunities will be available in plenty in future, the private sector will not find any difficulty to get local manpower,” the minister said.

The minister said the complaint that private sector was not getting the required number of visas to recruit skilled foreign workers was baseless.

He said the ministry issued last year 1.3 million visas, the highest in the history of the Kingdom and the highest number issued in any country in the world to foreign workers.

The minister said it would be difficult to increase the number of visas.