The Minister of Human Resources and Social Development has announced that H.H Engineer Ahmed bin Sulaiman Al-Rajhi has approved amendments to the flexible work regulation as issued by Ministerial Decision on April 2, 2020.

This decision is part of the HRSD Ministry’s ongoing efforts toward labour market regulations, supporting the stability and growth of organisations, safeguarding workers' rights, and attracting skilled talent with flexibility in the labour market. As part of this, Article 27 of the executive regulations of the labour law will be amended to develop flexible work regulations, which aim to:

1. Enhance the adoption of modern work patterns that are flexible for everyone, achieving the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.
2. Create rewarding job opportunities for citizens in different regions of the Kingdom and align with the needs of the private sector for national cadres.
3. Enable various segments of society to obtain flexible work opportunities that allow them to enter the labour market and gain skills and experience.

The Ministry emphasised its commitment through the flexible work regulation to create job opportunities for job seekers and provide opportunities to workers wishing to increase their income. This will be done through a flexible contractual arrangement where the wage is based on the hour. The Ministry has also worked on preserving the rights of both parties and increasing security and credibility by launching the flexible work platform to document work contracts electronically.

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Additionally, these amendments are designed to encourage companies to hire more flexible workers and ensure that their work hours are adequately accounted for in the Nitaqat system, ultimately supporting both employers and employees in the labour market. The amendments will encompass:

• Calculating flexible work hours for the employee from 95 to 160 hours per month with one or more establishments.
• Enhancing and protecting the rights of the parties to the contractual relationship within the flexible work system.

In addition to this, the Ministry recently announced the 'Wage Protection Service,' which is a structured and transparent method for paying domestic workers' salaries to improve the management and security of wage payments, benefiting both employers and workers. This will apply to new contracts starting on July 1, 2024, and to existing contracts starting on January 1, 2026. Employers with more than four domestic workers will need to implement this service from January 1, 2025, and those with more than two domestic workers will have to implement it from October 1, 2025, onwards.