Muhammad Al-Hassani
Okaz
Recently, Okaz daily published a report about the Ministry of Labor’s efforts to allow workers in the private sector to enjoy two days off each week just like public sector workers. The report called for increasing work hours in the private sector to nine hours so that workers could take two days off. It also mentioned the weekly work hours in some countries. Industrial countries, which are the richest, have fewer working hours.
In the United States, the working week is 35 hours, in France 28 and Sweden 27. The working week in developing countries like Chile, some African countries and Mexico is 50 hours. In the Kingdom, it is 48 hours. This means that production and development is not related to work hours but to other factors that have been overlooked by developing countries. If we look at the private sector in our country, we will see that most companies refuse to give workers two days off and reduce weekly work hours. Companies want workers to work more hours than those employed in the public sector while the salaries are lower than the salaries of public sector workers.
Moreover, the private sector pays salaries based on the Gregorian calendar which is 13 days shorter than the Hijri calendar. This means that the worker in the private sector works for free for a month every three years, compared to public sector employees who get paid at the end of each Hijri month. What is worse is that private sector employees do not have job security and may get laid off or fired.
That is why most of our young men and women work temporarily in the private sector because they have no other choice and leave it when they find a good opportunity in the public sector. The private sector should not blame our young men and women when they leave. Look at the employees who work in the banking, oil and industrial sectors run by the state. They never leave their jobs until retirement. Please do not blame our young men and women.
