Global employment briefing: Saudi Arabia, June 2018

• Saudi Arabia

• Employment law

12-06-2018

Recent developments in Saudi employment regulation

While there have been no recent major changes to Saudi Labor Law, the government, represented by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, has made some minor changes. These are by virtue of Ministerial decisions and develop the Labor law and its Executive Regulation to better regulate employment issues in the KSA. These are as follows:

0. Ministerial decision number 99439 - provides for the definition of a ‘Free Profession Employee’: “an individual who provides services per hour, per day or per job (task). Instead of working on fixed monthly salary for an employer” .
   
   A governing regulation will be issued to allow such individuals to benefit from the incentives granted to the free profession employees.


0. Ministerial decision number 9461 - states that an employer with fifty or more female employees must locate a suitable place with enough babysitters to look after their children aged 6 years and below.
   
   Also, the Ministry can require any employer with more than one hundred female employees in one city to establish a day care center on its own, in partnership with other employer(s) in the same city or to contract with a day care center to look after the females employees’ children during working hours.
   
   The Minister has the sole discretion to set the percentage the female employee(s) shall bear of the cost of the day care center fees.


0. Ministerial decision number 95296 - which states the jobs restricted to Saudi nationals (from both genders) only and the enforcement date of each.
   
   These job are listed below:
   
   

   Activities	Enforcement Date
   Clothes shops, kids clothes shops and Men’s accessories shops.	01/01/1440 H (Corresponding to 12/09/2018)
   Car and motorcycle showrooms	01/01/1440 H (Corresponding to 12/09/2018)
   Home and office furniture shops	01/01/1440 H (Corresponding to 12/09/2018)
   Home appliances shops	01/01/1440 H (Corresponding to 12/09/2018)
   Watches shops	01/03/1440 H (Corresponding to 10/11/2018)
   Sunglasses shops	01/03/1440 H (Corresponding to 10/11/2018)
   Home appliances and electronics shops	01/03/1440 H (Corresponding to 10/11/2018)
   Medical Equipment shops	01/05/1440 H 9 Corresponding (08/01/2019)
   Sweets shops	01/05/1440 H 9 Corresponding (08/01/2019)
   Car spare parts shops	01/05/1440 H 9 Corresponding (08/01/2019)
   Construction equipment shops	01/05/1440 H 9 Corresponding (08/01/2019)
   Carpet shops	01/05/1440 H 9 Corresponding (08/01/2019)



0.  Ministerial decision number 50945 - states that it is prohibited for any mega, big and medium enterprises to unfairly dismiss groups of Saudi nationals, without prior notification to the labor office of sixty (60) days prior the termination date.

Group dismissal means: terminating a group of Saudi nationals’ employment comprising1% of the total number of the employee in an organization or 10 employees which is greater, during one year from the last termination event.