Jordan lacks an integrated labour inspection system, with a low number of inspectors from the Ministry of Labor compared to the numbers of enterprises and business sectors, as 160 inspectors are distributed to approximately 2.6 million workers across the Kingdom.
A policy paper prepared by the Phenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies, titled "Towards increasing the effectiveness of labour inspection in Jordan" concluded that the number of inspectors does not commensurate with the duties required of them.
The paper noted that inspectors are not provided with transportation and computer tools, which leads to inspections losing their essence and efficiency. Inspectors continue to use paper-based data forms to obtain facility information; the inspection system thus lack computerized data or a clear archive.
The study also noted that inspection reports issued by task forces were brief, did not cover all sectors and statistics and also lacked clarity of data. Additionally, inspectors were assigned tasks that are not related to their core responsibilities, such as hiring days and supervising its programs, and resolving collective labour disputes.
The study recommended restructuring the inspection department by linking the inspection database to the databases of other relevant departments such as the Ministry of Industry and Trade (data from the Company Registry), the Social Security Corporation (data on salaries, injuries and occupational diseases), Civil Status and Passport Department (data on employers' name and national number), and the Ministry of Justice (data on the results of court-transferred liabilities).
It called for increasing the number of inspectors and redistributing them geographically according to the facilities and the numbers of workers. In addition to that, the paper also recommended providing adequate working conditions for women in this profession.
It urged for the preparation of a detailed training plan for labour inspectors, including a plan to build the capacity of trainers from the Ministry of Labour staff, the processing and design of training materials and topics to cover all areas of technical inspection, holding of training courses for all inspectors to build their capacities, and granting of new inspectors sufficient time of practical and theoretical training before assigning them to official inspection tasks, while taking into account the dimension of gender within this system..