Employer Records

What employer records are

Employer records (سجلات صاحب العمل) are the statements, registers and files that the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) requires an employer to keep at the workplace. The Implementing Regulations of the Labor Law (اللائحة التنفيذية) determine what falls within them and what data each one must contain. The basis is Article 17 of the Labor Law, and the detail is in Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation.

The term does not cover every document an establishment keeps. It covers what the Labor Law and its regulation name, with the content they specify. Treating the word records as meaning any administrative paperwork confuses a legal duty with documents an establishment keeps by choice. The term matters to the human resources officer, the accountant and the compliance officer, because each record can sit with a different function: workers’ names with human resources, wages with payroll, and attendance with whoever manages working time.

What Article 17 of the Labor Law provides

Article 17 of the Labor Law has two paragraphs. The first obliges the employer to keep at the workplace the registers, statements and files whose nature, and the data they must contain, are set by the Implementing Regulation. The Labor Law therefore names no register itself. It refers the question of what the records are, and what data they carry, to the regulation.

The second paragraph of Article 17 of the Labor Law obliges the employer to post a schedule in a visible place at the work site, giving working hours, rest periods and the weekly rest day, together with the start and end of each shift where work runs in shifts. That schedule tells workers what will be asked of them. It is not one of the records the regulation lists, and it is taken up under posted working hours schedule.

Which registers and statements the regulation specifies

Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation, in implementation of Article 17 of the Labor Law, provides that the employer includes the data below in the statements, registers and files it keeps at the workplace, whether they are paper or electronic.

• A list of workers’ names. It carries the names of the establishment’s workers, the occupation of each, their ages, their nationalities and their identity numbers, and for workers who are not Saudi the work permit numbers and dates.
• A wage statement. It carries the amounts of wages, the dates on which workers received them, what is deducted from the wage, and the reason for the deduction.
• A register of fines imposed. It carries the worker’s name, the amount of the worker’s wage, the amount of the fine imposed, and the reason for it and its date.
• An attendance register. It carries the time the worker arrived at work and the time the worker left the work site, together with any other data the employer sets.
• A register of training for Saudis. It carries the name, type, duration and year of the training programme, the number and names of the workers trained on it, and their share of the number of workers the employer has.
• A register of medical examinations for workers in establishments where workers may contract occupational diseases. It carries the names of the workers examined, the date of the examination and its results.
• A work file for each worker. It carries the worker’s data and address, a copy of the employment contract, and any certificates or documents the worker gives the employer.

Three features of the wording are worth noting. Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation fixes the data each record must carry, and we found no prescribed form or model in it, so an establishment chooses the layout of its columns and the shape of its record. It treats paper and electronic records alike, so an employer working on a digital system is not excused from these duties. And one record is limited by category: the medical examination register applies to establishments where workers may contract occupational diseases, not to every establishment.

Who appears in the list of workers’ names

The list shows whom the establishment counts as its worker: name, occupation, age, nationality, identity number, and, for a worker who is not Saudi, the work permit number and date. Behind it sits a question that comes before any calculation. Is this person a worker of the establishment, or does the person perform work for it without being on the list of its workers? The question becomes sharp when labour reaches the establishment through another establishment, a case set out under contingent workforce.

The list is examined alongside the work file and the wage statement. A worker in the establishment has a name on the list, a file holding a copy of the contract, and a wage recorded with the date it was received. That is our reading of how the records fit together, and it is not wording from Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation.

How wages, deductions and fines are recorded

The wage statement required by Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation includes what is deducted from the wage and the reason for the deduction, so it is not enough for the net amount to appear. Take a worker whose wage is SAR 8,000 a month and from whom SAR 400 is deducted for a recorded reason. The statement shows the wage of 8,000, the date of receipt, the deduction of 400 and its reason, and the amount received is SAR 7,600. The figures are hypothetical. The example shows what is recorded and does not show that the deduction is permitted, because the rules on deductions and their limits are a separate matter, taken up under wage deduction.

The register of fines has a second basis in the Labor Law itself. Article 73 of the Labor Law obliges the employer to write the fines it imposes on a worker in a special register, with the worker’s name, the amount of the worker’s wage, the amount of the fine, the reason it was imposed and its date. The data that Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation lists for this register is therefore the data that Article 73 of the Labor Law lists.

The register of fines can be confused with the worker’s sheet. The register covers the fines of the establishment’s workers as a whole. The disciplinary record sheet, by contrast, is kept for each worker under Article 69 of the model work regulation (النموذج الموحّد), which is Annex 1 of the Implementing Regulation. The sheet records the violation, its date and the penalty imposed, of whatever type, so the fine is only one of the entries. A single fine on one worker is therefore recorded in two places, and in our assessment neither replaces the other, because the data of each differs.

What the attendance register contains

The register carries the time the worker arrived and the time the worker left the work site. The regulation then adds an open phrase: any other data the employer sets. The establishment can add what it needs, such as the branch, the shift or the reason for lateness, without removing either of the two items the text names.

In Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation we found no provision on correcting an entry after it has been recorded, or on who approves a correction. That is a point the establishment regulates for itself, and one form of it is shown under attendance regularisation. We suggest that the original entry stay visible after a correction, so that whoever reviews the register later can see what was recorded on a given date.

What the register of training for Saudis contains

Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation provides that it carries the name of the training programme, its type, duration and year, the number and names of the workers trained on it, and their share of the number of workers the employer has. The basis of this register is Article 17 of the Labor Law. The provisions on training and qualification in the fourth part of the Labor Law are not its basis, and in their current texts we found no register.

The share can be worked out with hypothetical figures. An establishment has 120 workers, of whom 40 are Saudi. It ran a programme of 16 hours in a given year, and 18 workers were trained on it. If the denominator is taken as the text is written, the number of workers the employer has, the share is 18 ÷ 120 = 15%. If it is taken on Saudi workers alone, the share is 18 ÷ 40 = 45%. We apply the text literally to all workers, because it speaks of workers without limiting them to Saudis, and we found nothing that settles between the two readings. We also found nothing that says whether a worker who is not Saudi is entered in the register after completing the same programme.

What the medical examination register contains

It carries the names of the workers examined, the date of the examination and its results, and it is limited to establishments where workers may contract occupational diseases. Article 143 of the Labor Law obliges the employer to entrust one or more doctors with a comprehensive examination, at least once a year, of workers exposed to the possibility of contracting one of the occupational diseases specified in the schedules of occupational diseases, and to record the result of the examination in its registers and in those workers’ files. The disease itself and the provisions attached to it are set out under occupational disease.

In Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation we found nothing on how detailed the results must be. Medical information has its own rules on confidentiality, which are described under health certificate, and we suggest consulting a specialist before adopting a form for this register.

What the work file for each worker is

Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation provides that the file carries the worker’s data and address, a copy of the employment contract, and any certificates or documents the worker gives the employer. That is the minimum the regulation states. What establishments keep in the file in practice is wider, and it is described under employee file.

Article 69 of the model work regulation refers to the worker’s service file, and Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation refers to a work file for each worker. We found no text that says whether the two are one file, so we do not equate them here.

Here is an internal check with hypothetical figures. The files of 120 workers are examined and a copy of the contract is found in 114 of them, so completeness on this item is 114 ÷ 120 = 95%, and 6 files remain to be completed. The check is a practice we suggest, and it is not a procedure that the regulation provides.

Whether an inspector can see these records

Article 198 of the Labor Law gives labour inspectors the right to see all the books, registers and other documents that must be kept under the provisions of the Labor Law and the decisions issued under it, and to obtain copies and extracts from them. That wording is a general reference and lists no particular document. In our assessment, the records that Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation requires in implementation of Article 17 of the Labor Law fall within it. The inspector’s powers and the establishment’s duties during an inspection are covered under labour inspection.

How long records are kept

In Article 17 of the Labor Law and in Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation we found no period for keeping these statements, registers and files, so we state none. A period set for a different record in a different instrument is not borrowed for these, and each retention period is taken from the instrument that sets it.

Where records are kept

The wording of Article 17 of the Labor Law is that the employer keeps these records at the workplace. In the sources we reviewed, we found nothing on where an electronic record is to be held, or on an establishment with several branches.

What follows from not keeping a record

We do not estimate a particular penalty for omitting one of these records. The effect of a violation is a matter for the Schedule of Violations and Penalties, issued by Ministerial Decision No. 112377, and that is where it is to be checked.

How an establishment organises its records

We suggest that each record have an owner known by name, and that the date of its last update be written on each. Names and files are assigned to human resources, wages to payroll, attendance to whoever runs working time, and fines to whoever imposes them. When a record is changed, we suggest that the previous version not be lost, so that the version in force on a given date remains available.

We also suggest that the establishment check its records against the list of data in Article 5 of the Implementing Regulation. The aim is to confirm that each record carries the data the regulation names, and that it does not exist in name only. This is a practical recommendation and not a requirement found in the Articles.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.