The Ministry of Labor has imposed a ban on the recruitment of labor from Ebola-affected countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Deputy Labor Minister Moufarrej Al-Haqbani said the decision was taken as a preventive measure against the spread of the Ebola virus in the Kingdom, describing it as a temporary ban. “We have taken this action in coordination with the Ministry of Health (MoH), which stopped issuing Haj and Umrah visas to pilgrims from these endemic countries in April,” he noted.
The ministry also warned against travel to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The travel advisory issued cautioned citizens and residents to avoid all travel to these countries until further notice due to the active outbreak of Ebola virus in those countries.
Al-Haqbani said such a ban on these countries will not affect the labor market in the Kingdom since the manpower recruited from these countries are negligible in number. “Until June this year, there was a total of 527 workers deployed in the Kingdom from these three countries,” he said, pointing out that 152 of them are domestic workers. He also noted that the total number of visas issued to these three countries was 120 during this period and 88 of them were domestic workers.