MLSD unveils new updates on WPS by tomorrow

The Ministry of Labor and Social Development will launch on Wednesday the first phase of introducing new changes on the Wage Protection System (WPS) aiming to manifest the percentage of compliant establishments and send alerts, urging employers to immediately fix their wage files as per the new labor regulations.

The WPS seeks to provide a suitable and safe work environment in the private sector, raise transparency, protect rights of involved parties through monitoring payroll process for male and female workers (Saudis and expats), assess employers’ compliance with paying wages on time and with the agreed mount and reduce labor disputes between the contracting parties in the private sector.

The newly-updated WPS allows employers via the website to receive rejected files according to the month and type of violation, as well as review their compliance status for the current month or for the last six months.

The system rejects wage files that are changed after receiving them from the bank, as well as those that have no unified number of establishment or being invalid along with rejecting those paid in other currencies rather than Saudi Riyals.

The ministry puts forward a user guide on the WPS’s website that can be accessed through its portal (https://www.mol.gov.sa), stressing whoever fails to follow the specifications of the system, their wage files will be completely rejected.

additionally, the files get rejected if the total payments are not equal to the basic salary, housing allowance, other benefits and deductions, as well as if payment details or total payroll are found negative or zero, or else worker’s national IDs or Iqama are wrong.

The ministry emphasized its keenness to protect rights among contracting parties and penalize those who fail to correctly upload the wage files, pointing out the violations affect compliance rate if the employer fails to provide any justification that accepted by the labor inspector.

The establishment is also penalized if it pays the worker more than once in the same month as the WPS excludes the repeated files for the same worker.

Other cases include establishment’s failure to pay the worker on time, and it is also penalized if it deduces more than 50 percent of his/her basic salary that is registered under GOSI. Also, the establishment is penalized if the basic salary is not equal to what is registered under GOS.

The ministry highlighted that the new changes of the WPS assess employer’s compliance through comparing the number of workers whose wages are forwarded to the system with the total number of workers in the establishment registered under GOSI.

The expat worker is counted as part of the compliance rate of the establishment in the first 90 days from his/her arrival date in the Kingdom, whereas the Saudi worker is counted when s/he is present for one month.

The ministry commented the establishment that fails to upload the wage files on time will be denied access to its services following warnings issued against them.