The Ministry of Labour lifted the ban on hiring foreign labourers outside Jordan to work in the agricultural sector, according to a statement published on the ministry website on Thursday.
"Allowing the recruitment of the foreign workers will affect the agricultural sector positively," Eid Rbeihat, Jordanian Farmers’ Union Spokesperson, told The Jordan Times.
Rbeihat added that farmers want to employ Jordanian labourers, but Jordanians "are unwilling to work in the agricultural sector due to low wages and harsh work conditions".
"Farmers cannot pay any more in wages than they already do; therefore, Jordanians have to accept the payment that a foreign worker gets,” Rbeihat noted.
“Employing foreign workers reduces the costs paid by the farmers,” he added.
He pointed out that production and transport costs are very high, in addition to the cost of water, worker’s wages and taxation.
Farmers are “drowning in debt just to keep going”, he stated.
"The Labour Ministry aims to reduce the unemployment rate and encourages the hiring of local workers instead of foreign workers through concerted action plans and programmes aimed at regulating the Jordanian job market," Labour Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Zyoud told The Jordan Times.
Zyoud noted that the ministry is applying a major corrective action plan that does not allow the employment of any foreign labourer who does not comply with their work permit status. He added that employers who employ more than three workers have to register the workers in the Social Security Corporation (SSC) subscription.
According to Zyoud, the ministry allowed farmers to recruit only one foreign worker for each foreign worker who left the Kingdom in the period between July 4 and September 2.
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