For reasons it sees as objective, the Ministry of Labor refuses to introduce a minimum wage in the Kingdom. The idea of a minimum wage is of course part of the economies of most countries in the world. At the same time, the ministry is trying to enforce a policy of Saudization in which Saudis would take jobs being done by expatriates and receive the same salaries as the expatriates. I believe the end result of such an approach will be that we will not see any successful Saudization, and what will happen is simply more experiments.
There can be no successful nationalization of jobs in the private sector even if the ministry slaps a complete ban on the recruitment of foreign workers or deports the entire foreign work force; this lack of success will be the case as long as the private sector’s wage system remains unchanged. Salaries paid by the private sector attract foreign workers and because of their willingness to work for the wages, businessmen cannot be expected to increase them. This is certainly true as long as the authorities do not oblige them to do something about the problem.
If recruitment were banned, businessmen would advertise vacant posts to be filled by Saudis but would have in mind paying the same salaries they had paid to foreign workers. Even if they introduced some changes, these would be only cosmetic. They know very well that no one will force them to pay more than what they are paying their foreign workers. When Saudi employees begin slipping away in search of better-paying jobs, the businessmen will grumble and say that Saudization has been a failure. They will remind us of the good old days when production was high and everything ran smoothly.
Some may ask why a qualified and experienced foreign worker would agree to work for a monthly salary of SR1,500 or less while a Saudi will refuse that salary. The answer is simple: Any money remitted by the foreign worker is considered a handsome amount in his home country. A Saudi receiving the same salary would never be able to cope in his home country. With such a salary, the Saudi would be unable to afford food and clothes, pay the rent or the electricity, water, telephone and other bills. And what if the family consists of 10 people?
If no practical steps are taken to address the matter, Saudization will develop into a real crisis instead of providing solutions to the country’s problems. Everyone will claim that they alone know best and that they alone have the solution. In the meantime, unemployment will increase and the meaningless and pointless discussions will continue.
