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Qatari government to mandate job contracts for all employees
The government in Qatar is likely to make job contracts mandatory for all its employees, including nationals, who were so far not required to sign any employment contracts. Henceforth, all government agencies, including various ministries, will have uniform job contract formats.
Such an initiative is aimed to comply with the provisions of Human Resource Law (Law No.8 of 2009), enforced last year. The legislation for the government sector is equivalent to labour law applicable to private firms.
There will be six types of employment agreement, which includes those for nationals, those for non-citizens hired locally, those for overseas workers recruited directly from abroad, and then there may be temporary employment contracts, and those for semi-skilled and unskilled workers.
Qatar has already chalked out formats for all the said contracts, which its various government organizations will be signing with their employees, which includes citizens and non-citizens.
The formats have been distributed to various government agencies, including ministries, for adoption. There will be 3 copies of each contract, one to be retained by the employee, another by the employer, while the third will be forwarded to the General Secretariat of the State Cabinet for record. Any employee-employer disputes can be taken to court for settlement. The government also plans to introduce special job contracts for certain employees. The duration of such contracts will however, be decided by the concerned departments subject to endorsement from the cabinet.
Employees, irrespective of whether they are citizens or non-citizens will have to submit a minimum of 60days notification in advance, in case they wish to resign.
Job contracts for citizens will include 14 clauses, while those for locally recruited non-Qatari employees will have 16 clauses. The one for overseas workers will include 17 clauses.
Fresh employees, including nationals, will be given a three month probation which may be extended by another three months before confirmation.
Posted on 24/5/2010
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