Employment Policy In Saudi Arabia - Coursework Example

2.0 Public and private sector of Saudi Arabia Kingdom Government of Saudi Arabia is Monarchy type of government. The government got independence in September, 23 1932 when the Kingdom was unified. The Kingdom is governed using Sharia or Islamic laws. The Kingdom is divided into 13 provinces known as Mintagah (Kregel and Unger, 1993). Since the beginning of the first Saudi State in the 18th century, through the founding father King Abdulaziz bin Abdelrahman Al-Saud, Islamic law has be the pillar and source of the Saudi Arabia’s basic system of public administration (Kregel and Unger, 1993. In 1953, Saudi Arabia’s council was established by a decree that was issued by the son of the King. For effective administration of the public sector, twenty government ministries were formed between 1950 and 1960. King Fahd introduced new basic law in 1992 to help in public governance and regulation and for provincial system and Majlis Al-Shura, which was a consultative council (Kregel and Unger, 1993). Additionally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the largest petroleum reserves in the world and is one of the largest exporters of petroleum in the world. The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 75% of the total revenue budget, 32.7% of GDP and 88% of the earnings from export sector. The public statistics has it that one fourth of the Saudi Arabia population is non-Saudis (Ghaida, 2010). Non-Saudis do represent two thirds of the total civilians labor force and they share exceeds 90 per cent in the private sector. The Quran is the supreme constitution of Saudi Arabia and due to its precepts that are not specific in day -to-day public management concerning public matters; the rulers of Saudi Arabia promulgated new regulations that are to apply for public administration. The regulations were compiled by King Fahd in 1992 and later named as the basic law (Ghaida, 2010). In public administration, the King combines the executive and legislative functions as well as serving as the ultimate source of judicial power in Saudi Arabia (Ghaida, 2010). However, the King is limited to perform these functions by Islamic law, royal family consensus and the traditional consultation forum. On a matter, which deals with serious public policy, the King must seek agreement among the senior religious leaders, political elites, senior princes and important tribal families (Ghaida, 2010). The basic principal office is the Royal Diwan; the King occasionally convenes his Majlis. The main functions of the Majlis are to make the King of the republic be accessible to the citizens of Saudi through public personal appeals. The complainants normally ask the King’s assistance with bureaucratic problems within the public arena. The King is vested with the responsibility of drafting regulations and issues royal decrees from this office (Rispler-Chaim, 2007). Recently, there has been instances where the king held the position of the prime minister of the republic and assisted by two deputy prime ministers and council of ministers all appointed by him. He has the right to convene, dissolve and reorganize the consultative council and the council of the ministers (Rispler-Chaim, 2007). Administratively, the Kingdom is divided into 13 provinces called mintaqat and is ruled by governors. The governors are appointed by the King and are directly report to him. Most the governors are members of the house of Al –Saud (Rispler-Chaim, 2007). Saudi Arabia is a country of immense diversity and, until at least the period of the post 1973-1974 oil boom. Due to small population of the country in early 1970’s the kingdom suffers from a small market size that denies small local producers the advantage of economies of scale. Furthermore, since producers are wide spread and geographically dispersed, they suffer from relatively high transportation and communication costs, that tend to limit opportunities for production-based export trade in private sector. The government public expenditure positively impact on the private sector development of Saudi Arabia due to the one fact is only government who can heavily spend on capital expenditure on infrastructures like in roads and communication that will eases the costs of doing business in Saudi Arabia. Both the private and public sectors must work hand in hand to improve economic development of the country. They also employ people equally in various departments, and the public sector having the larger percentage in terms of employment. The ministry of labour deals with the employees within the Saudi Arabia. 2.1 Civil services system of Saudi Arabia Kingdom The ministry of civil service was established in 1999 with Dr. Muhammad bin Ali-Feyez as its first minister. The ministry is vested with the power to plan and organize the civil work force that is required by the government in order to ensure that the recruited civil servants competencies matches the required skills hence will be able to implement the various development plans and programs (Ghaida, 2010). On legal affairs, the law governing the operations of civil servants is based on the Royal Decree number 49 of 1977 that was launched as civil service regulation. Page 1-10 of the Um Al Qura, Ministerial council decree number 178 of the 1999 gives the regulation on how the management of civil service of Saudi Kingdom is organized (Ghaida, 2010). Conversely, all civil servants in Saudi Kingdom are ranked according to grade and advancement depended on merit and seniority of the position applied. The promotions of staff members and staff evaluation is done in accordance to the civil service rules and regulation. Each employee of the government must aim at attaining the highest level of excellent in terms of service delivery to the citizens (Ghaida, 2010). The institute of administration IPA is task with providing short courses to the civil servants of the Saudi Kingdom. This is mainly to ensure that the public servants remained relevant to the current technological trends in the country and the world in general. Most females employed in Arabia Kingdom are mostly working in the service sector mostly in education, health and other social services within the country. While there is no female who has ever occupied ministerial or legislative post in the Saudi government, many of them hold the position of the sub-cabinet and senior government positions mostly in the education, health and social services sector. People with disability are highly ignored in civil service sector with very little law protecting them. Working days in the public sector is from Saturday to Thursday starting from 7:30 AM to 2:30 PM. The official holidays include Eid al Fitr, Eid Al-Adha and the Kingdom National day. The law spell that public civil servants retire at the age of 60 for men and 55 for women. The government employees are given medical insurance and retirement benefits. The government employee’s benefits from vocation and annual leaves that are paid fully paid. They are granted 36 days leave a year, maternity leave of sixty days minimum from the date of birth. Civil servants are entitled to full salary for sic leaves of six months and half a salary for the second six months and the a quarter salaries for the following six months with no salary for the following six months (Rispler-Chaim, 2007). The national day vacations are in September 23. The educational leave is given to civil servants of Saudi Arabia where permanent employees are given 14 days and contracting employees are given seven days per academic year. Every employee is entitled to emergency leave of not more than 5days in any fiscal year. Infant care vacation is given of a maximum three years all of his or her service term with government. There is also a companying leave granted by the government if the wife or husband of any of the employees is going to study outside the country. The leave will be unpaid for a maximum of six years (Rispler-Chaim, 2007). 2.2 Saudization plan The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the world-leading exporter of petroleum and petroleum product making it to be one of the richest nations in the Middle East with major economic reform and political influence in the region. In 1999, the country consent to the World Trade Organization because of economic reforms in the regions. The country’s largest population consists of young people aged forty years and below (Rispler-Chaim, 2007). The government set up a number of supporting entities that include the human resource management and development to drive the policy of Saudization in the early 1999s, fund and corporative training were also established and other training scheme for Saudis. “Saudi workers shall not comprise less than 75% of the total number of the company/establishment [and] workers and their wages shall not be less than 5% of the total wages of workers.” (Article 45 of the Labor and Workman Law of Saudi Arabia) (Rispler-Chaim, 2007) "The employer shall vocationally train his Saudi workers to replace foreign workers" and the "employer shall keep a register on which he shall record the names of the Saudi workers who have replaced non-Saudis." (Article 45 of the Labour and Workman Law of Saudi Arabia (Rispler-Chaim, 2007).These laws will ensure adequate sharing of labor and workforce within the country. 2.3 Nitaqat program In Saudi Arabia Kingdom The ministry of labor in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has inquorate the Nitaqat program that simply means Ranges in Arabic in order to increase the number of job opportunities for the citizens of the Kingdom in private sector. The Nitaqat program involve direct government intervention aimed at obtaining quick results and also giving the nationals of Saudi Arabia better stand in the local job markets that is currently dominated by foreign employees accounting of up to 90% of the total people employed in private sector (Ghaida, 2010). Nitaqat program is the one, which replaces the national job program called Saudization. Unlike Nitaqat, Saudization program followed a blanket approach in which the law requires that 30% of quota for the locals in the private company irrespective of the economic activity and the company size. Under the Nitaqat program, the government would take time to evaluate the private entities based on their nationalization performance that is measured by calculating the percentage of Saudi Arabia nationals employed by the firm (Ghaida, 2010). The nationalization performance of the companies is always calculated on a moving average method over successive period of 13 weeks’. Based on the performance relative to their economic activity and the size, the entities would be classified into four major bands that include Excellent, Green, yellow or red. Classification of private companies Excellent Entities achieving superior nationalization performance with the highest percentage of local employees Green Entities achieving good nationalization performance, with good percentage of local employees • Green and Excellent companies represent the top half of entities with same size and economic activity Yellow Entities achieving below average performance with lower percentage of local employees Red Entities achieving poor nationalization performance by hiring the lowest percentage of local employees These firms represent the bottom one fifth percentile of entities with same size and economic activity 2.4 Jadara program In Saudi Arabia This is the same as the Saudi E-government program also known as Yesser. It was first created in 2005 with first action plan in the year 2006. It coordinated decentralization approach with unified vision and action plan and shared infrastructure on common standard and practices (Ghaida, 2010). In the first action plan was driven by Ambitious vision as a catalyst for e-government Provide common applications for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of government Provide a refined level of government services for individuals, businesses and government Build infrastructure with high reliability (data + technical) to provide state-of-the-art services Establish enabling programs to facilitate e-government advancement in effective and needed ways The Single sign-on (SSO) for Enterprises and individuals is considered one of the significant regulations of implementing the e-Government transactions issued within the Cabinet's resolution. It was designed to; Designed to “inspire and reward change Enhance Public involvement Effective “lever of change” The Jadara program vision was to enable everyone to use effective government services, in a secure integrated and easy way, through multiple electronic channels. All the ministries were incorporated in this plan including the ministry of labor called Harfiz. The Ministry of Labor has called on unemployed Saudi jobseekers to apply for unemployment benefits, or Hafiz, by sending their names and identity card numbers via short message service (SMS), or by registering on the ministry’s website (Ghaida, 2010). Civil Service –E- recruitment "Jadara" Program; Ministry of Civil Service Jadara Program for eRecruitment, recording those who want and are willing to be recruited through its new "Jadara", a recruitment program for male and female citizens in the public sector. Both the disable and other people are encouraged to apply job through online services. Reference Ghaida Al-Salloum (2010) labor and the nitaqat program: effect on the saudi arabian economy Saudi Arabia Kingdom Kregel, J. and Unger, D. 1993. "Employer Perceptions of the Work Potential of Individuals with Disabilities", Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 3(4), 17-25. Rispler-Chaim, V. (2007). Disability in Islamic Law (1st. ed). Dordrecht, Netherlands. Springer. Read More