Unexcused employee absence: causes, harms and how Dawmt helps you track it

Unexcused absence from work is one of the most common violations human resources (HR) departments deal with, and one of the few for which the Saudi Labour Law sets a clear number of days. An employer therefore needs to know when absence becomes grounds for dismissal, and what steps must come first.

This article explains what unexcused employee absence means, with examples, and how it affects the workflow, performance appraisal and promotion. It sets out what Article 80 of the Labour Law says, then shows how companies can track absence accurately and how Dawmt helps.

What is unexcused employee absence?

Unexcused absence is when an employee does not come to work on official working days without prior permission from the company and without a legitimate reason they can support with evidence, such as a medical report for sick leave. It differs from statutory leave and approved absence because the company neither agreed to it nor knows the reason for it.

This kind of absence exposes the employee to the disciplinary penalties set out in the company's work regulations, such as a warning or a deduction from pay, and it can lead to dismissal without the end-of-service benefit if it goes beyond the limits the law sets.

Examples of unexcused absence at work

Most companies see the same forms of unexcused absence again and again. The main ones are:

Absence without prior notice

The employee stays away without telling their line manager or the HR department, and without getting approval before the absence.

Continuous absence

The employee stays away for several consecutive days without requesting leave or giving an acceptable reason. Article 80 counts this kind of absence by the number of consecutive days.

Late arrival and early departure

The employee comes to work but arrives after the start time or leaves before the end of the day without permission. The violations schedule in the Implementing Regulations of the Labour Law treats late arrival and early departure separately from absence, with penalties of their own.

Absence after leave is refused

The employee requests leave, the company refuses it for a work-related reason, and the employee stays away anyway. This counts as unexcused absence because it happened without approval.

Repeated absence

The employee is absent a day here and a day there over the year, without giving a reason for any of those days. Article 80 counts this kind of absence by the total number of days in the contract year.

Read more: Absence during the probation period

How unexcused absence harms the workflow and productivity

The effect of unexcused absence does not stop with the absent employee. It reaches their team and your company's clients:

• Lower productivity: every unplanned day of absence is a working day lost, and managers cannot reallocate it in advance because they did not know about it.
• Delayed tasks: the absent employee's tasks slip, and so do the projects that depend on them.
• More pressure on colleagues: the absent employee's work moves to colleagues on top of their own, which adds stress and fatigue.
• Lower quality of work: work piles up for the employee's return, they rush it, and quality drops.
• Weaker discipline: if absence keeps happening and the company does not apply its regulations, the rules lose their meaning for everyone else.
• Damage to the company's reputation: late delivery and missed deadlines erode client trust over time.

What does the Saudi Labour Law say about unexcused absence?

Article 80 of the Labour Law sets out the cases in which an employer may terminate the contract without the end-of-service benefit, notice or compensation. Paragraph 7 reads:

"If the worker is absent without a legitimate reason for more than thirty days during one contract year or more than fifteen consecutive days, provided that the dismissal is preceded by a written warning from the employer to the worker after twenty days of absence in the first case and ten days of absence in the second case."

The limits are therefore:

In every case, the article requires the employer to give the worker "the opportunity to state his reasons for objecting to the termination". The Labour Law amendments issued by Royal Decree No. M/44 dated 8/2/1446 AH, in force since February 2025, did not change these numbers: Article 80 was last amended by Royal Decree No. M/46 dated 5/6/1436 AH.

The violations and penalties schedule in the Implementing Regulations of the Labour Law states the same two limits, and sets graduated penalties for shorter absences, in addition to deducting pay for the period of absence.

What must your company do before dismissing for absence?

• Record every day of absence with its date, together with evidence that the employee had neither permission nor a legitimate reason.
• Count the days within one contract year, as the article says, and keep intermittent absence apart from continuous absence, because each has its own limit.
• Send the written warning on time: after 20 days of intermittent absence, or after 10 days of continuous absence, because the article requires the warning to come before the dismissal.
• Hear the employee before deciding: no disciplinary penalty may be imposed until the worker has been told in writing what he is accused of and questioned, and his defence has been heard, with all of this recorded in a report kept in his file (Article 71).
• Respect the time limits: a worker may not be charged with a violation discovered more than thirty days earlier (Article 69), so HR needs to track absence as it happens.

See also: Cases of employee dismissal in the private sector

How does unexcused absence affect performance appraisal and promotion?

Repeated absence affects the employee's path in the company, from their annual appraisal to their chances of promotion:

A negative appraisal

Repeated absence reduces what the employee delivers during the appraisal period, which shows in their appraisal result, especially if attendance is one of your company's appraisal criteria.

The effect on commitment

Repeated absence gives the impression that the employee does not respect working hours or the tasks expected of them, and that impression shows when they are appraised and when they are considered for a new role.

Loss of promotion

The disciplinary penalties that Article 66 of the Labour Law allows include postponing a promotion for up to a year, and withholding or postponing a pay increment for up to a year, where the employer provides for them. The violations schedule uses these two penalties for some cases of absence.

More penalties

Every unexcused absence is a violation recorded in the employee's file, and the penalty may be increased for a repeat violation unless 180 days have passed since the employee was notified of the penalty for the previous one (Article 68).

Read more: Employee promotion system for companies

The challenges of tracking employee absence manually

Some companies still track attendance and absence on paper or in scattered files, and that creates clear problems:

• Human error: it is easy for a day of absence to go missing from the record or be entered wrongly, and every error changes the total.
• Time and effort: collecting attendance from managers and branches every month takes HR time away from more important work.
• Hard-to-build reports: adding up each employee's absence over a contract year by hand is slow, and the result is prone to error.
• Hard to prove in a dispute: dismissal for absence needs an accurate record of every day, a warning sent on time and a report of the employee's hearing, which is hard to assemble from scattered records.

Read more: HR automation

The role of digital HR systems in tracking unexcused absence

Digital HR systems help you track absence accurately because they record data as it happens instead of collecting it later:

• Real-time clock-in and clock-out: absence shows in the record on the same day, so HR does not find out at the end of the month.
• Leave and excuse management: the employee submits a request with supporting documents and the manager approves or rejects it, so every absence leaves a documented trail.
• Regular reports: they show each employee's and each team's absence for any period, so HR can see who is close to the legal limits.
• Attendance linked to payroll: days of absence flow straight into payroll calculation, so deductions are applied without re-entering data.
• Transparency: employees see their own record and requests, which reduces disputes over the number of days absent.

See also: HR reports

How Dawmt handles attendance and absence tracking

Dawmt's HR system brings attendance, leave and payroll together in one platform. Employees clock in from the Dawmt app inside the work site's geofence, with selfie verification, or on biometric terminals connected to the system, or through the Dawmt Kiosk app, where a supervisor scans each worker's QR ID card for crews without smartphones. Employees working remotely also clock in from the app.

In the Dawmt app, employees submit leave requests with attachments such as a medical report and give the reason for any attendance exception, and managers approve or reject their team's requests in the app. Every day of absence therefore leaves a documented trail: whether a request came first, and whether it was approved.

Contact the Dawmt team

Dawmt reports for tracking repeated absence

Dawmt's reports show each employee's attendance, days of absence and leave for the month or any period you choose, with dates, so HR can follow each employee's total days of absence and send the warning on time. When the attendance period is closed before payroll is calculated, days of absence are reviewed and the deductions and penalties are then applied in the payroll register according to your company's settings.

Sign up for Dawmt to track your employees' attendance and absence with an accurate record that is clear to both sides.

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Sources

• Labour Law issued by Royal Decree No. M/51, with amendments up to Royal Decree No. M/44 dated 8/2/1446 AH, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (in Arabic), Article 80 (paragraph 7: absence without a legitimate reason), and Articles 66, 68, 69 and 71 (disciplinary rules).
• Labour Law, Part 5: Labour relations, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (in Arabic), text of Articles 50 to 88.
• Implementing Regulations of the Labour Law and their annexes, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (in Arabic), violations and penalties schedule (working hours violations).

This information was reviewed in October 2026. Regulations can change, so check the official source before relying on it.