JEDDAH, 3 May 2004 — Saudi Arabia yesterday banned small companies from recruiting foreign staff in a bid to create jobs for Saudis and scale down the Kingdom’s unemployment rate.
“Labor offices have been instructed to prevent small companies with fewer than 10 workers from recruitment” of foreign staff, Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi said.
Gosaibi, who took over the Labor Ministry two weeks ago, said competition from foreigners made it difficult for qualified Saudis to find jobs.
“The ban on recruitment was imposed to create more job opportunities for skilled Saudi laborers who cannot find jobs because of competition from expatriates,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying.
Expatriates are often prepared to work harder than Saudis for less money.
Gosaibi emphasized the need to rationalize recruitment of foreign workers to balance the labor market.
The Kingdom issued 600,000 job visas last year and 120,000 visas in the first two months of this year. “If visas are issued at this rate, there would be some 750,000 visas this year — a figure I will never accept as long as I am in charge,” he said.
The minister said “a large number” of Saudis had been trained at public and private training institutes, “and they are capable of doing any job efficiently.”
He added that some 300,000 Saudis would be trained within the next three years.
“An economy that can find seven million jobs for foreign workers can surely employ 300,000 Saudis,” he said.
