For something slightly more than a decade, the Saudi community has been hearing the word “Saudization” — replacing a non-Saudi employee or worker with a Saudi employee or worker. Over the years, many of my foreign friends have said, “Raid, this is your country and the day will come when you must take over.”

As time passes, however, I sometimes wonder if “Saudization” is just a fairy tale. Is it just a fantasy that brings a smile to our faces but can never really be achieved? Will we ever have a 100 percent — or even 70 percent — Saudi work force?

Based on recent statistics from the Ministry of Labor, the simple truth is that the number of Saudis in the Kingdom’s private sector is no more than 500,000. The majority of private sector jobs are held by non-Saudis. And though we Saudis do not deny that it was foreign labor and foreign expertise that built the country’s infrastructure, we must realize that things would be better if we had developed our own country and taken on the responsibilities that we have so often pushed onto non-Saudis.

In order to achieve 100 percent Saudization we must first understand the reasons why we continue to depend on foreign labor and how we can overcome them. If we look around, we will realize that the majority of essential work is done by non-Saudis: Plumbers, electricians, bakers, construction workers, waiters, mechanics, salesmen, cooks and so on. The list is endless. In fact, it would be fair to say that over 90 percent of all blue-collar jobs are held by non-Saudis.

Unfortunately, the reason for that lies with what we call our culture, our tradition and even our ideology. There are still many Saudis who believe that it is beneath them and their prestige to work in these jobs and that those jobs were meant to be filled by non-Saudis. Ninety percent of nurses working in our public and private hospitals are non-Saudi. The reason for this is that, to a large extent, our society still disapproves of a Saudi woman working in a sexually mixed environment. Others will go so far as to say a woman who does so, despite the nobility of her calling and her work, is mingling sinfully with men.

Something else that many of us fail to realize is that all people were not created with the same mental and physical capabilities. If everyone had an IQ of 150 and was a college graduate, who would bake our bread, drive our buses, fix our cars, repair our leaky pipes or build our houses? Not everyone is able to be a doctor, lawyer, banker or computer engineer. There must be a balance in society. And any society’s balance can only be achieved from within its own groups.

Recently, I have heard from a Saudi friend who is a graduate of King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals that Saudization has gone so far in Saudi Aramco that there are now even community workers who are Saudis. That news put a smile on my face. A mathematician told me once: “No society in the world can really develop until the sweepers cleaning its streets are its own nationals.” I did not disagree with him.

It brought me great joy to read that the first group of Saudis graduated from the Saudi-Japanese Institute for Cars two days ago. Having undergone extensive training and with the cooperation of Japanese experts, those Saudis now have the necessary skills to be mechanics or service men and above all, raise their heads high, and say, “We are Saudis.”

It is sadly true that many Saudis are lazy. Many of them want a desk job and will go to any lengths to avoid hard work. Many of them want the easy way our and do not want to go the extra mile. Still I believe that it is only fair to say that there are ambitious young Saudis who have dreams and who are both reliable and hard working. With proper guidance and training, they could replace many non-Saudi employees in the private sector. This will never happen, however, if they are not given confidence, trust and above all, the chance to prove themselves.

Every year Arab News, along with its sister publication, Al-Eqtisadiah, publishes an annual list of the Top 100 Saudi companies. I wonder about the Saudization level in the majority of those companies, or if they even have training courses for Saudis. It’s a question worth finding the answer to.