Workplace safety key concern

In the past five years, 307,855 workers in the private sector were injured as they were doing their jobs, 92 percent of whom were foreigners.
According to government reports reviewed by Aleqtesadiah daily, 54 percent of these injuries occurred in Riyadh, Makkah and Dammam, with the construction industry alone accounting for 46 percent of the overall injuries during the past five years.
In 2016, the number of injured workers decreased by 20 percent with 53,404 injuries against 67,087 injuries in 2015; 69,241 injuries in 2014; 52,467 injuries in 2013; and 65,656 injuries in 2012.
Occupational hazard coverage of the Social Security System is applied to all Saudi and non-Saudi workers in the private sector, without distinction of age or gender.
Employers pay the monthly insurance premium and cover all expenses for injuries that workers sustain during work in the workplace, on their way from home or to work, and occupational diseases.
The Social Security System also covers enrollees whose salaries have dropped by 10 percent or more in their last years of work before retirement. In this case, special provisions apply to adjust the average monthly earnings used to calculate benefits.
In this exceptional case, the Social Security System calculates the average wage during the past two years (after the salary dropped) and the wage average before this period (before the salary dropped). The final retirement pension is the average of the salaries in these two independent periods.
In normal cases, the retirement pension is the average salary of the two years prior to retirement. These laws are issued in order to preserve the rights of the enrollees and protect them from any consequences caused by a salary decrease during their last two years of work.