310,064 foreign workers now hold work permits — Labour minister

AMMAN — The Cabinet, during a session headed by Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Bisher Al Khasawneh, on Sunday reviewed a report on the process of rectifying the legal status of non-Jordanian workers, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Labour Minister Yousef Al Shamali, briefing the Cabinet, said that the Cabinet’s decision on June 23, 2021 approving the grace period to rectify foreign workers’ legal status and tackle the imbalances in the Jordanian labour market included granting a number of financial exemptions for work permits and fines imposed on workers violating residence permits. 

From July 4, 2021 until September 2, 2021, the Labour Ministry issued a total of 11,279 work permits in various sectors and businesses. 

The number of foreign workers who obtained work permits until September 2 reached 310,064, the minister noted.

On the other hand, the Cabinet approved the postage stamp issuance plan for the year 2022, which includes nine postal editions including wildflowers in Jordan, the Royal Tank Museum, adventure tourism in Jordan, Queen Alia International Airport, Salt, the Thamudic inscriptions in Jordan, the Dead Sea, migratory birds and cultural diversity in Jordan. 

The Cabinet also directed the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship to issue a special postage stamp to celebrate Madaba being named the Arab Tourism Capital for 2022 and to coordinate with Visit Jordan on the selection of images for this purpose.

In addition, the Cabinet decided to approve the executive programme for higher education cooperation between Jordan and Egypt for the years 2021-2024.

The programme comes within the framework of bolstering cooperation between the ministries of higher education in the two countries in the cultural, scientific and technical fields.

It also includes visits between faculty members and staff in universities and institutes in both countries, in addition to offering scholarships to universities and institutes in Egypt and Jordan.

Similarly, the Cabinet approved the executive educational programme with Armenia for the years 2021-2026.

Under the executive programme, the two parties work to establish and develop direct links between universities and scientific and research organisations in the two countries, in addition to offering scholarships for bachelor's and master's degrees in many disciplines.

The Cabinet also decided to restructure the Board of Commissioners of the Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission (CARC), as part of its previous decision to reduce the number of CARC commissioners to three instead of five in order to rationalise spending and streamline performance.