Occupational Health and Safety

What occupational health and safety means

Occupational health and safety (السلامة والصحة المهنية), also called occupational safety and health, is the set of duties that the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) places on the employer and on the worker together to protect the worker from the hazards of work and from the diseases that arise from it. Its place in the Labor Law is the first chapter (الفصل الأول) of Part Eight (الباب الثامن), on the prevention of work hazards, which runs from Article 121 to Article 126 of the Labor Law.

The duties are set in the text; they are not an optional programme. Articles 121 to 126 of the Labor Law require specific acts: keeping the establishment in a fit condition, taking precautions, informing the worker of the hazards, training workers in protective equipment, and preparing for fire. What a reader does not find in the Labor Law itself is the detailed level of the requirements, with their standards and procedures, because Article 121 of the Labor Law refers that level to a decision of the Minister.

Occupational health and safety in Articles 121 to 126 of the Labor Law

• Article 121 of the Labor Law. It requires the employer to keep the establishment in a healthy and clean state, to light it, and to secure water for drinking and for washing, together with the other rules, procedures and levels of protection, safety and occupational health that the Minister determines by decision.
• Article 122 of the Labor Law. It requires the employer to take the necessary precautions to protect workers from the hazards and diseases arising from the work and from the machinery used, and to post, in a visible place in the establishment, the instructions on the safety of the work and of the workers, in Arabic and, where needed, in another language the workers understand.
• Article 123 of the Labor Law. It is made up of two sentences, and its timing applies only to the first. Before the worker starts work, the employer must inform them of the hazards of their occupation and oblige them to use the protective means prescribed for it. The second sentence carries no timing qualifier: it requires the employer to provide suitable personal protective equipment to the workers and to train them in its use.
• Article 124 of the Labor Law. It places duties on the worker: to use the protective means, to preserve them, and to carry out the instructions laid down to protect their health and guard them against injury and disease. The worker must also refrain from any act or omission that prevents those instructions from being carried out, or that misuses or disables the means provided to protect the workplace and the health and safety of colleagues.
• Article 125 of the Labor Law. It requires the employer to take the necessary precautions against fire and to provide the technical means of fighting it, including escape exits that are secured and kept usable at any time, and to post detailed instructions on fire prevention in a visible place.
• Article 126 of the Labor Law. It makes the employer responsible for emergencies and accidents befalling people other than its workers who enter the workplace by virtue of their office, or with the consent of the employer or its agents, where these arise from neglect of the technical precautions that the type of work requires. The employer compensates them in accordance with the general laws, not under the work injury provisions of the Labor Law.

Royal Decree M/44 of 8/2/1446H amended the Labor Law with effect from 19 February 2025. That decree did not amend Articles 121 to 126 of the Labor Law, according to both the footnotes of the consolidated text published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development and the ministry’s table of the amendments.

The occupational health and safety cost that is never charged to the worker

Article 122 of the Labor Law ends with a sentence that a summary can leave out: the employer may not charge workers, or deduct from their wages, any sum for providing this protection. The cost of protective means and equipment therefore does not fall on the worker and is not taken from their pay. That is a rule in the text, not a policy the establishment sets for itself.

An employer that recovers the price of protective equipment from an employee’s salary has breached Article 122 of the Labor Law, the same provision whose duties it was required to carry out, and not merely an internal rule of the establishment. Deductions from wages in general have their own provisions in the Labor Law; for the cost of protection, Article 122 of the Labor Law settles the point directly.

The worker’s side of occupational health and safety

Article 124 of the Labor Law places the duty on the worker, and the second case of Article 80 of the Labor Law attaches a consequence to it. Under that case, a deliberate failure by the worker to observe the safety instructions posted by the employer in a visible place is a ground on which the employer may rescind the contract without an award, notice or compensation. The text sets conditions on that ground which are not always stated together:

• A written warning. It must precede the rescission.
• Posted instructions. They must have been posted in a visible place, as Article 122 of the Labor Law requires.
• Deliberateness. It is part of the case, which describes a deliberate failure to observe the instructions.
• The opportunity to object. It is the condition with which Article 80 of the Labor Law opens for all of its cases: the employer gives the worker the opportunity to state their objections to the rescission.

An employer that never posted the instructions therefore cannot rely on Article 80 of the Labor Law in respect of them. Royal Decree M/44 of 8/2/1446H, which amended the Labor Law, did not amend Article 80 of the Labor Law. The conditions of that provision are set out in our guide to dismissal without an award under Articles 80 and 81 of the Labor Law.

Where the detail of occupational health and safety sits

Article 121 of the Labor Law refers the rules, procedures and levels of protection, safety and occupational health to a decision of the Minister. In the sources we reviewed, we did not locate that decision, and we found no provision of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) that executes Articles 121 to 126 of the Labor Law. Not having located the decision is not the same as there being none, because the referral stands in the text. In practice, the detailed level of the requirements is not in the Labor Law, so a detailed requirement attributed to Article 121 of the Labor Law alone is attributed to the wrong place.

Three further provisions in Part Eight of the Labor Law bear on the same duties:

• Hazardous occupations. Article 131 bis of the Labor Law, added by Royal Decree M/5 of 7/1/1442H, provides that the Minister determines by decision the occupations and work that are hazardous or harmful, and the categories barred from them or admitted to them only on special conditions. We did not locate that decision in the sources we reviewed, so no occupation or category is drawn from it.
• Reporting a work injury. Article 141 of the Labor Law refers the procedures for reporting work injuries to a decision of the Minister, and we did not locate a standalone decision. Article 28 of the Implementing Regulation executes Article 141 of the Labor Law for one case only, an establishment not subject to the occupational hazards branch of social insurance: in that case the employer reports the injury to the competent labour office within a week of learning of it. Article 132 of the Labor Law disapplies the chapter on work injuries, Articles 132 to 141 of the Labor Law, for establishments subject to that branch, and for them the reporting route is set under the social insurance law that governs them. The chapter is outlined under work injury.
• The first aid cabinet. Article 142 of the Labor Law requires the employer to prepare one or more first aid cabinets, and leaves their contents, their number, the quantities of medicine, their keeping and the conditions of the person giving first aid to the Implementing Regulation. Article 29 of the Implementing Regulation sets out the contents as a table of quantities, so anyone telling an establishment what to keep in the cabinet takes the table from the Implementing Regulation and attributes it there.

Where a provision refers its detail to a ministerial decision, that detail is checked in the decision itself when it is needed. Who carries these duties out from day to day inside an establishment is discussed under health and safety officer and safety committee.

Occupational health and safety at the level of national policy

Two decisions of the Council of Ministers address the subject beyond the articles of the Labor Law: the national policy for occupational safety and health (السياسة الوطنية للسلامة والصحة المهنية), issued by Council of Ministers Decision 328 of 13/6/1442H, and the organisation of the council (تنظيم المجلس), issued by Council of Ministers Decision 379 of 7/7/1443H. Both are cited in the preamble of the regulation on occupational fitness examinations and noncommunicable diseases (لائحة فحوصات اللياقة المهنية والأمراض غير المعدية), the fitness regulation for short, issued by Ministerial Decision 33232 of 11/3/1447H. In the sources we reviewed, the two Council of Ministers decisions appear as citations in that preamble, and their content is not set out, so no rule is drawn from them.

Occupational health and safety and the fitness examination

The procedural guide (الدليل الإجرائي) issued under Article 20 of the fitness regulation sets a rule that bears directly on prevention. It prohibits establishments from using the occupational fitness examination as a substitute for applying the preventive controls in the hierarchy of controls, and it describes the medical examination as a means of monitoring, not of prevention.

An establishment that examines its workers periodically but leaves the hazard at its source is using the examination in the way the guide prohibits: it has recorded the effect of the hazard rather than prevented it.

How occupational health and safety differs from major hazards and the occupational hazards branch

Close Arabic wording is used for three terms that refer to different things:

• Work hazards (مخاطر العمل). They are what the worker is exposed to in their occupation, in the sense of Articles 121 to 126 of the Labor Law, and they are the subject of occupational health and safety.
• Major hazards (المخاطر الكبرى). They are a description, in Articles 127 to 131 of the Labor Law, of particular establishments that, permanently or temporarily, produce, process, discard, handle, use or store hazardous substances in quantities exceeding the permitted standards, not a general grade of danger.
• Occupational hazards (الأخطار المهنية). They name a branch of social insurance with a separate contribution, set out under GOSI contributions.

The wording is close, but the subject of each term is different, and a sentence that moves from one to another without saying so changes what it claims.

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

Related terms

• Health and Safety Officer
• Safety Committee
• Work Injury
• Hazard Pay
• Schedule of Violations and Penalties