Even Middle Eastern construction companies to enter ¡¯52 hours per week¡¯¡¦Construction completion to be delayed, cost & period to go up
Park Sang Gil | sweatsk@ | 2018-04-24 10:47:44

Ten construction sites in the Middle East are expected to be closed by the end of this year, with the 52-hour weekly working hours applied from July.

Despite a foreign construction worker belongs to a domestic company, it will be subject to domestic law. In case of a workplace with 300 or more workers starting from July, working hours exceeding 52 hours will violate the Labor Standards Act.

The National Assembly passed an amendment to the Labor Standards Act last February, reducing the statutory working hours per week from the current 68 hours to 52 hours.

According to the construction industry on April 23, the total cumulative loss of construction companies in the Middle East, including the UAE, Morocco, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, is estimated at W1.84trillion by the end of the year. At least 70% of the work rate is in progress, but the business was delayed due to the planned completion date, resulting in losses. The Middle East seemed to improve the atmosphere of the construction market after the resumption of Iranian economic sanctions last year, but the situation has worsened as the oil reserves have been on a prolonged basis and it is hard to expect a big rise this year.

On that day, domestic builders` orders in the Middle East were USD 3.6 billion (USD 3.8805 billion), down 57 % from USD 8.38 billion (USD 8,893.3 billion) in the same period last year.

Order receipts are expected to decline and project delays for major projects will continue for the time being as oil production cuts are expected to continue through next year due to intensified conflicts between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are the main rival of the Middle East.

Among them, the labor force cost competitiveness is expected to decline due to the introduction of the 52-hour workweek in July.

For example, in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the weekly working hours of these local construction workers are 72 hours and 60 hours, respectively, and when they are reduced to 52 hours, 1.1-1.3 times more people are needed.

Since it is difficult to select personnel as a decimal point, it is expected that about twice the number of personnel will actually be used, and the industry expects that the labor cost will rise from several hundred billion won to several hundred billion won.

A construction industry official said, "If the 52-hour week is applied, the construction period will not be met, and if the construction period increases, the price competitiveness will pose a negative impact on additional orders.¡±


By Park Sang Gil sweatsk@


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