Gulf Construction Online - Saudi Binladin slashes jobs as Covid crisis bites

Saudi Focus

Saudi Binladin ... thousands of employees on unpaid leave as it weighs options to lower costs by 50 per cent.

Saudi Binladin slashes jobs as Covid crisis bites

01 June 2020

Saudi Arabia’s biggest construction firm Binladin Group cut jobs and reduced staff salaries as it navigates the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, reported Bloomberg.

The Jeddah-based conglomerate put thousands of employees on indefinite, unpaid leave as it weighs options to lower costs by as much as 50 per cent, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The group reduced pay by about a third during Ramadan to reflect shorter working hours, which impacted about half of its 100,000 employees, according to the report.

The company, which is restructuring an estimated $15 billion of debt, has already started laying off staff, including senior managers, and more jobs will be cut, the sources said, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Binladin International Holding Group is seeking an advisor to help cut costs as well as restructure the debt of a skyscraper complex in the kingdom’s Makkah city, reported Reuters citing sources familiar with the matter.

The move is part of efforts to restructure the construction group, after the government took a 35 per cent stake from Bin Laden family members that were swept up in an anti-graft campaign launched by Riyadh in late 2017.

Binladin had completed the $15 billion government-owned Abraj Al Bait golden clocktower complex in 2011. The development has seven towers of hotels and malls and looms over the Grand Mosque which is visited by millions of Muslim pilgrims every year, stated the report. The 603-m-tall clock tower is the landmark feature of the complex, which was built to modernise the old city and provide accommodation and other facilities for pilgrims.