The Ministry of Labor (MoL) is studying ways to reward private companies that pay high salaries to their Saudi employees “in appreciation of their role in nationalizing jobs,” said ministry spokesman Hattab Al-Enizi.
Around 68 percent of expatriates reportedly receive SR 1,000 and 20 percent receive SR 2,000 or less, while 10 percent receive SR 10,000 and above. The last category consists of mostly engineers, doctors and consultants.
Minister of Labor Adel Fakeih had issued a decision aimed at solving the problem of low wages by setting the minimum wage of SR 3,000. The decision would be a condition to count a Saudi in a private company’s records in Nitaqat. The decision also includes ways to count Saudis who receive less than SR 3,000.
Saudis who receive SR 1,500 would be counted as half an employee, and those who receive less than that would not be counted at all.
Al-Enizi said that the MoL has no plans to count Saudis who receive a salary of SR 8,000 or more in the private sector as two for the Nitaqat system.
The World Bank and the Saudi Ministry of Economy and Planning calculated that the Saudi per capita income is roughly SR 6, 400 per month compared to SR 15,200 in GCC countries and SR 23,600 in Europe. Saudi women’s average monthly income was estimated at SR 3,900 compared to SR 8,700 in GCC countries and SR 15,000 in Europe.
A MoL survey shows that the average monthly salary of Saudis is SR 3,477. The ministry’s study stated that Saudis’ salaries in the private sector are two times less than their counterparts in the government departments.
MoL to reward firms promoting Saudization
