Minimum wage increase under Nitaqat applies to all Saudi employees: Ministry

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development said that the decision to raise the minimum wage calculation for Saudis from SAR 3,000 to SAR 4,000 applies to all existing and new workers in the Saudi labor market.

The employee, earning less than SAR 4,000, will be accounted as “half worker” in (Nitaqat), Makkah newspaper quoted the ministry’s spokesperson, Nasser Al-Hazani, as saying.

He also added that this will be applied to the existing private sector employees as well as the new entrants.

The groups benefiting from the decision are all the private sector employees with wages subject to social insurance and salaries less than SAR 4,000, and not within specific groups, the official said.

Al-Hazani added that the ministry currently does not possess any statistics regarding the number of beneficiaries, with wages ranging between SAR 3,000 to SAR 4,000 per month. However, it is working in cooperation with the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) to create statistics for such beneficiaries.

According to the data available on Argaam, the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, Ahmad bin Sulaiman Al-Rajhi, recently issued a decision to raise the minimum wage calculation for Saudis in Nitaqat from SAR 3,000 to SAR 4,000.