Jordan- Ministry to hire Jordanians for hospitality services in health facilities 

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) The Ministry of Health will recruit some 7,000 Jordanians starting next month as part of a plan to develop in-house hospitality services, Minister of Health Abdul Latif Wreikat said on Wednesday.

Currently, the ministry relies on contracting companies, the majority of which are non-Jordanian, to provide custodial work, catering and other auxiliary services in its hospitals and health centres, he noted.

"We will develop our own hospitality services that include cleaning and catering services," the minister told The Jordan Times over the phone, adding that all employees will be Jordanians.

He noted that the workers will be offered health insurance and social security subscriptions to secure them a "good work environment".

According to Wreikat, this experiment will be implemented in several of the Kingdom's public hospitals and health centres in different governorates to help provide job opportunities to citizens across the country.

"The experiment will be evaluated one year after its implementation to see if we can apply it in the rest of the public health facilities," the minister explained.

In a meeting with Mazen Maaytah, president of the General Federation of Jordanian Trade Unions, Wreikat noted that the ministry had recorded several violations against employees of hospitality and cleaning service companies with which the ministry is currently contracting.

Some of these violations include forcing employees to work overtime without extra pay, denying them medical leave and forcing them to work during public holidays, Wreikat said in a statement sent to The Jordan Times.