The General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) will introduce a new insurance scheme in a few months to protect employees from the consequences of loss of employment.

The scheme called "Saned Insurance" protects employees against sudden loss of job in both private and government sectors. The scheme will be introduced on Sept. 1 in collaboration with the Ministry of Labor and the Human Resources Development Fund, the director general of media and spokesman of GOSI, Abdullah Al-Abdaljabbar, said in a posting on the GOSI website.

The scheme is a part of a series of GOSI’s programs to promote job security for workers in the private and public sectors, he said.

Al-Abdaljabbar said the scheme would benefit thousands of young Saudi men and women employees, who are the most vulnerable to accidents.

The new scheme will ensure compensation to subscribers who have lost their jobs for reasons beyond their control. It will also provide a monthly payment to them during the transitional period between the last job and a new one, he said.

He added that the scheme would be mandatory for all Saudi employees in private and government sectors who are covered under the pension scheme of the social security system for both men and women.

He said the registration in the program is automatic, provided that the subscriber’s age is less than 59 years. The compensation will be paid only after a subscriber has been in the insurance scheme for at least 12 months, should not have left his job of his own accord and should not have any income from private work.

The subscription rate will be 2 percent of the monthly wage to be shared equally by the employer and the worker.

The compensation will be paid for 12 months on each occasion of a subscriber’s eligibility to it and will be at the rate of 60 percent of the average salary for the first three months but not exceeding SR9,000 per month. For the remaining nine months, it will be 50 percent of the average salary but not exceeding SR7,500 per month. The minimum compensatory amount will not be less than SR2,000 a month.