Hi Ladies & Gents,

Decided to move to Riyadh from the UK for work summer last year with a small company affiliated with a larger company in the UK (discovered later, no legal connection).

Long story short, there has been problems with delayed payment & I have decided to take up alternative employment elsewhere in the GCC. At the moment I am looking at losing a couple of month's salary if I jump.

They have me working out here on a non-working visa and worried that there will be no recourse for claim, due to Saudi laws. I ask if there is anything that can be done, or do I simply accept my losses & move on.

I understand that there are many more employees in the same or worse situations than me and especially sympathize with those much lower down the pay scale.

I sympathise with you very much and I don't know if Saudi is any different to other GCC places but your situation sounds much as mine was recently. See my thread

http://britishexpats.com/forum/middl...no-pay-873386/

I'm guessing many of the comments I received will apply equally to you.

I did finally get paid, I was lucky, but I think you should plan for the worst. If there was any connection between the UK and Saudi outfits maybe you could try to work with them, legal connection or not.

Thanks Martin,

Yes Saudi is getting very bad, heard of professional folks holding out for 6 months for redundancy money & the government contracts are not being paid due to cost reductions due to the oil price. Its is heading south here for construction very fast.

I am going to hold on until my new start date & see what comes of it & maintain the illusion of willful employment as long as I can.

Advise to anyone considering a construction job in KSA - Dont do it! Wait until the oil price is recovered, as I can only see worse times ahead.

Martin,

Did you end up going home or did you get another job in GCC?

There are a couple of other factors at play:

Yes, Oil Price is a factor, but not the only one. The "war" with Yemen has depleted a huge amount of the government funds. Meaning they are struggling to fund other projects. Huge / Mega projects with the government ministries have suffered, so before rejecting construction jobs in KSA, ask the question - who is the main client?

If its the public sector - then yes, be aware of the situation.

However, smaller construction companies are thriving - those who take on smaller projects within the private sector are still recruiting staff and this will probably be the main activity in construction for this year, until the Yemen situation is resolved ( may soon? ) and the oil price starts to creep up.

Indeed, however the companies that were reliant on the quickly evaporating public sector funds are now entering the private sector market, creating more competition (like my current company is attempting to do). There are a lot of mouths to feed.

Does working for one of the smaller companies (presumably Saudi owned) not present its own problems, I have seen many westerners pushed out of such companies to save locals.

I was offered a peach with another outfit here in Qatar. 3 months in I can sense there might be a stone to swallow at some point, isn't there always, but for now it's still very sweet. Pay was already one month late for everyone when I left the other lot, then it went to two months and I had all but given them up as like you I wasn't exactly legit. Then out of the blue I got an email to pick up the cheques and they paid in full. I sense in part they might like me to go back at some point so they did all they could and to be fair it was the first time in almost 3 years.

I'm not in construction but I don't think other sectors are much different at the moment.