Saudization on; RP Embassy to help terminated OFWs

The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh has offered help to Filipinos who were terminated by their employers in Saudi Arabia as the Middle East state implements its Saudization labor policy.

Filipino workers who received termination notices from their employers or who have been terminated without valid cause are advised to get in touch with the embassy through the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Riyadh, Jeddah and Al-Khobar.

The embassy said it will provide the “necessary assistance” to affected Filipino workers, who are feared to reach hundreds.

Analysts believe it will be huge setback to the Philippine economy that is mainly dependent on overseas Filipino workers’ remittances.

Moreover, the Manila government would be hard-pressed to generate jobs in the country amid high unemployment rate if the layoffs would become a continuing trend.

Saudization, which seeks to reduce the number of foreign workers, encourages employment of Saudi nationals in the private sector, which is largely dominated by expatriate workers like Filipinos.

In the Saudization program, companies are classified into four color-coded categories—blue, green, yellow and red. Firms in the yellow and red categories are in the danger zone as they are required to meet their quotas of hiring more locals in mid-September or shortly after that, or face penalties.

Green companies are those in the process of meeting their quotas, while blue companies are those who have already met the government requirement of employing least 15 percent local workers.

Currently home to over 1 million Filipino workers, Saudi Arabia is the top destination of Filipino expatriates since the implementation of the government’s labor export policy in the 1970s in response to a deepening domestic job shortage.

Apart from Saudization, the Philippine government also grapples with Saudi Arabia’s stop-hiring policy for maids from the Philippines due to an unresolved wage row.

Under the Saudi Labor Law, the embassy explained an employer can only terminate a work contract “if the worker assaults the employer or any of his superiors or if the worker fails to perform his essential obligations or obey legitimate orders from his superiors.”

It can also be done if it is established that the worker committed a misconduct or act of dishonesty, deliberately commits any act or default with the intent to cause material loss to the employer, or resorts to forgery to obtain his job, the embassy said.

Affected workers are given the chance to refute the grounds for their termination, it said.

They can also file a complaint with the Saudi Labor Office for illegal termination through the embassy’s assistance. –Michaela P. del Callar, Daily Tribune