It is indeed amazing to see very government agency that is supposed to serve as the guardian of Saudization and whose job is to ensure Saudis get work, resorts to hiring people from other countries to work with it.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read an advertisement in an Egyptian newspaper by the Saudi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs asking for non-Saudi doctors, nurses and other medical staff to come and work with the ministry. This comes at a time when scores of Saudi doctors, nurses and graduates of polytechnics and vocational colleges are trying in vain to get work.
For years job applications submitted by graduates of medical colleges and vocational training institutes have been lying with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and other civil service departments. We would be committing a sin if we left the young people of this country loitering on the streets and knocking at the doors of government departments looking for work. These young people need to work to be able to support themselves and their families, and exposing them to the perils of unemployment is a crime, too. The greatest sin, however, is for the very ministry that exercises control over the process of Saudization at both the government and private levels to behave in the way it did and hire workers from abroad.
As if not content with what it is doing, the ministry continues to dismiss with contempt any suggestions or remarks published in the newspapers on the need to emply the people of the country.
Ministry officials announce from time to time that job applicants can always submit their papers and seek to assure job seekers that that it won’t take long before their applications are processed and they are given jobs. What happens usually contradicts what the officials say. Saudi job applicants are not called to take over the promised jobs and instead the ministry opts to bring in workers from other countries to work with it.
These officials should stop talking about Saudization: They don’t seem to be working to further the Saudization drive or concerned about providing jobs for these large numbers of the unemployed. Are these officials not aware of their responsibility toward their country and people? If things continue the way they are going now, I don’t know how we are going to solve the problem of unemployment.
Arab News From the Local Press 20 July 2003
