The private sector allowed recruiting 10% Registering foreign labor [Archives:2006/947/Business & Economy]

Mohammed Khidr & Ismael Al-Ghabiri
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor in Yemen undertakes many important tasks related directly to labor force, especially the national workforce. Foreign labor affairs are also directly dealt with by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor particularly regarding granting them work permits that facilitating their obtainment of residency permits as a legal procedure for their stay and work in the country. The ministry is also meant with drawing up plans for development of human resources and contribution to alleviate of unemployment.

One of the important institutions of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor is the Social Affairs Office (Work Office) in the capital and its branches in other governorates of the country. It has so many tasks to undertake and various services to offer. To shed light on the nature of this Work Office, Yemen Times has interviewed the Office's Director-General Ali Abdullah Al-Dailami.

The man is specialized in philosophy and sociology graduated from Sana'a University and has been working for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor since 1977. He has assumed several posts at the ministry in more than one governorate in Yemen before assuming his present post.

Foreign labor

At the beginning we asked Mr Dailami on how the office could manage dealing with such large-segment of people from different Arab and foreign nationalities working in Yemen.

Mr Dailami said the social affairs office is not specialized just in dealing with foreign labor. It has many other specialties and tasks. For instance the office tasks extend to productive families, societies and cooperatives, employment of foreign labor, the arbitration committees that settle disputes between employers and their employees, especially those who had been fired from their jobs in an arbitrary way and had not paid their service rights as stipulated in the law. The office has other tasks such as social security, issues of inspection and other duties related to the office work particularly after issuance of local rule in 2000, which defined the tasks of the social affairs ministry's duties in this regard. “With regard to foreign labor, we as offices of the Social Affairs and Labor Ministry carry out all the tasks assigned to us all over the governorates and the present tasks of the ministry are the planning and implementation of al projects. Labor inside the capital secretariat is dealt with via the work office which grants work permits and in cases of violation, the office authorities stipulate taking legal measures against persons committing such violations.” The Work Office director-general said.

He has also said that the offices have the right to replace foreign labor by local labor, whenever expertise and qualifications required by local labor market, are available.

Decentralization

On whether the work offices own the authority to issue work permit or if the process centralized, Mr Dailami said the ministry has authorized the offices in all governorates to grant work permits without consulting the ministry. The only exception where the ministry interferes is after the fourth renewal of the permit. In this case the ministry decides granting the permit for a foreigner who is staying in Yemen for five years.

The Yemen Times asked him about a new strategy concerning granting work permits to persons working for government institutions, international organizations and embassies of foreign countries to which he replied, “The ministry is keen on cooperation with the international organizations. There are in this regard various types of permits which are issued by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation. The Ministry issues an official memorandum acknowledging that person does work for a certain international organization and thus he is granted a permit free of charge. With regard to work permits granted to persons working for public sector institutions, the fees charged for them are half the amount compared to amounts for persons working for private sector establishments.”

“Are there intentions to reduce procedures of granting work permits?” we asked Mr Dailami. He said he believes that the republic of Yemen is almost a unique example in this regard. The issue of a work permit does not take a long time. As soon as an application received from any concerned institution, all procedures are finished in the same day. All procedures are completed easily and there are no complications whatsoever.

Statistics

On statistics concerning the work accomplished by the Work Office in 2005, Mr Dailami has said there were 650 male job seekers and 50 female job seekers. There were 540 males who got job opportunities and 117 females got job opportunities. As for work permits for non-Yemenis, the Office issued 613 for males and 511 for females. The number of newly issued work permits they amounted to 84 for males and 149 for females and renewing of permits amounted to 34 for males and 20 for females.

Mr Dailami also touched on cases arising from problems concerning workers rights in some establishments and the role of the Office in solving them. He said many of the cases are settled by the labor administration that is concerned with settling disputes arising between employers and workers. He emphasized that most of issues of dispute happen for the local labor. The foreign labor is organized with contracts between owners of the establishment or company. Those establishments are mainly keen on meeting the terms of the contract with the foreign worker and it is very rare that disputes occur between the two contracted sides as the worker is granted all his rights before the end of his term of work for them.

Regional foreign labor

Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Work Office has requested from private sector establishments to cooperate with Social Affairs and Labor offices by providing information on the foreign labor they employ. It has been learnt that some private sector institutions employ foreign labor without informing the ministry and that would result in imposing big fines on the foreign worker and sometimes the foreign worker is employed by those establishments for more than five years without his having a work permit. He asks any person working without having a work permit to ask his employer to get him a work permit in order to avoid any legal accountability, especially when travels by passports authority or any relevant establishment.

On the other hand Mr Dailami said the labor law No. (5) for the year 1995 has defined the legal proportion of foreign labor by 10% against 90% local labor and that this proportion is allowed for the private sector establishments. Concerning the public sector he said it does not employ more than 3-4% of foreign labor and thus this proportion is not applicable to it. For investment companies there is the investment law that defines foreign labor for investment companies and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor has created a special office at the General Authority for Investment to deal with this question. For international organizations the proportion of foreign labor may amount to 100% and the oil employs 50% as local labor and depends on specializations.

Nonetheless, Mr Dailami said there were many violations committed at private sector institutions and there is a section at the work office for inspecting such violations. There are measures taken in cases of violations such as imposing a pecuniary punishment amounting to 20 thousand Yemeni riyals on a foreign worker working without a work permit.

In conclusion, Mr Dailami appreciated Yemen Times initiative for conducting the interview with the Work Office at the capital secretariat, affirming it would serve giving the Yemeni citizen and the foreign worker information and an idea about the tasks taken by the office and the measures it takes regarding it various duties.
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