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IQAMA, PASSPORT AND WORK

deecas

Passporrt and Iqama:
I am new in Saudi and it is my first time to go abroad. We arrived May 16th of 2019 and until now 1 month passed we havent had our IQAMAs yet, also our passport has been kept by our Sponsor and they said for safe keeping, they have issued us with a photocopy of our passport and visa and a piece of paper that they said our Temporary Iqama number.

Questions:
1.How long it will take before a new expat received their Iqama?
2. Should our sponsor really have to keep our passports?

WORK ETHICS AND BREAKS

We are hired under the category of "Labor" since we are working under manpower and services, and particularly for Foods and Beverages, we start working from 5pm to 12mn, as they said an 8 hour shift per day for 6 days. According to labor laws all employee's are entitled to get a full 30mins break every 5 hours interval, but during my first month until now it is not being followed, we are given 20mins of rest for the whole 8 hours shift, some times we don't have breaks. Since our work has been said to be for 8 hours, we stayed inside the shop to clean and finished around 130am and managers audits the stores income per day and then we are all released by 2am and reach our accomodation by 2.30am.

Questions:
1. Are break scheds should be implemented strictly or this depends on the will on the store manager?

2. are we entitled for Over time pays after 12mn?

Post Script:

There are older batches from our store who arw about to return to the Philippines yet they were only been provided with 1200sr (aside from their backpays) for air tickets and was told if ticket's are more than 1200sr the exiting employee will shoulder the extra costs, is this allowed?

See also

Living in Saudi Arabia: the expat guideChecking the Iqama balanceWhat is maximum age for iqama 69 or 62?checking iqama with passport numbermanual passport for iqamaChanging of Date of Birth while renewal of PassportWorking without iqama
Lydia73

IQAMA CAN TAKE 6 WEEKS TO 2 MONTHS

It is better to keep it with your sponsor the passport.
i know incidents where expat lost their passport and you can not go home without your passport. it will take you another year to organize a passport, while you in Saudi without visiting home, so my advice keep it with your sponsor and only ask it for certain things you want to do.