Expatriate industrial workers here are calling on their companies to increase their wages to a minimum of SR5,000 a month because they cannot survive on their current salaries of between SR1,000 and SR1,800 a month.

They say their companies have refused to increase their pay even though they are required to increase their productivity amid the shortage of staff caused by government’s crackdown on illegal workers. It is estimated that expatriates make up over 90 percent of factory workers.

The Kingdom does not have mandatory minimum wage laws. Hattab Al-Enizi, spokesman of the Labor Ministry, said the ministry is currently not considering any proposal for private firms to have a minimum wage for expatriates or Saudis.

Several expatriate factory workers said they cannot survive on the money they are being paid, particularly with the rising cost of living in the Kingdom.

“It’s hard to work in a factory for only SR1,000 a month. There is a shortage of staff in many factories because many illegal workers stayed home. But many factories have refused to increase the monthly salaries of their staff,” said Mahmoud Omer, a Yemeni working at a food factory in Jeddah.

The issue of a minimum wage was raised at a meeting in June between the Labor Ministry and business owners. Business owners rejected the idea of a minimum wage because they said it would benefit mostly expatriate workers.

The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) has said it would visit various industrial areas in Jeddah to check on the wages and conditions of expatriate workers and compile a special report on the matter.

Hussein Al-Sharif, the NSHR’s Jeddah branch supervisor, told Arab News earlier that the organization would also check on working conditions at property development sites. According to statistics, there are 2,513 factories in the central region of the country and 1,325 in the Eastern Province.