"Salaries delayed in 50% of contracting companies", 17 July 2018

About 50 percent of contracting companies in the Kingdom face difficulty in paying the salaries of their workers as a result of the delay in clearing bills for government projects as well as the global recession since 2016. About 3.5 million expatriates in Saudi Arabia work in the contracting sector. There are about 120,000 contracting companies across the Kingdom with a total investment of SR300 billion. They employ more than 4 million workers including Saudis. In 2016, 31,000 workers of a well-known contracting company presented a petition to the Ministry of Labor and Social Development because the company did not pay their salaries for several months. The ministry’s spokesman Khaled Abalkhail did not respond to telephone calls for his comment on the issue... Real estate investor Raed Al-Oqaily blamed the no- payment of salary on the halt of money flow from the government, which owns 80 to 90 percent of projects implemented... Economist Dr. Abdullah Al-Maghlouth said at least 50 percent of contracting companies in the Kingdom do not pay salaries of their employees on time... Osama Al-Afalik, president of the Contractors Authority, agreed that 50 percent of companies are unable to meet their financial obligations. “The delay in payment of salaries of workers has become a phenomenon in the contracting sector,” he explained. He urged the authorities to pump money into major companies to stop the disruption of projects...