Delayed wages issue not yet a crisis, says Saudi labor minister

Delayed wages for workers is a problem in Saudi Arabia, but not yet a crisis, Saudi labor minister Mufraj Al-Hugbani was quoted as saying in Okaz newspaper.

He added that members of his ministry travel to companies across the kingdom regularly to ensure that employers are doing their part to ease the problem as much as possible.

Saudi Arabia’s construction sector has been hard-hit by a slowdown, as the government canceled or scaled down on several projects and postponed payments in the wake of falling oil prices.

Hundreds of employees at the kingdom’s biggest construction firms, Saudi Oger and Saudi Binladin Group, saw their wages delayed by several months this year, while thousands of workers have been dismissed.

The slowdown in the kingdom’s construction sector is expected to persist in the “foreseeable future” as a fiscal squeeze will continue to force cuts in capital expenditure, research consultancy Capital Economics (CE) said in a note last month.