He gave a brief sketch of the major problems pertaining to the labor market. The minister also put forward some ideas to address the problem of unemployment, but his words did not contain any promises to solve the problem at the grassroots level. Replying to queries, the minister spoke about the problems of runaway housemaids and minimum wages. The minister urged everybody concerned to come forward with ideas, proposals and opinions in this respect.

Here the important thing is creating an appropriate environment for increasing employment opportunities. The Kingdom and other GCC states offer a vast number of job opportunities, but unfortunately only a small number of citizens can take advantage of this. The underlying problem is not in creating employment opportunities but in having an appropriate environment under which priority could be given to citizens over foreigners.

Among the problems, which the labor minister did not mention in his speech, is the sponsorship system; it should be reviewed, as far as the labor law and the state of foreign workers in the Kingdom are concerned. The review of this system should be made mainly on two grounds: First, the system is abused, and human rights violations occur. The sponsor too can impose restrictions on his workers’ personal freedoms. A worker’s personal rights are at the mercy of the sponsor. If the worker has any personal dispute with the sponsor he or she faces the risk of deportation and possibly an injunction against returning to the Kingdom.

This punishment can be meted even to those who do not deserve it. Unfortunately, some citizens misuse these rights that have been entrusted with them by the law with an objective of protecting these rights. Some sponsors blackmail their workers, even garnish their wages under threat of deportation.

The second problem is that some citizens misuse the system when they hire a large number of workers and then illegally outsource the labor while charging those workers a monthly fee. These Saudis break the law when they bring foreign workers to do jobs for others or jobs that are different from the ones stated on their work visas. Such activities are detrimental to both the country and the foreign workers who must pay money for a service that Saudi citizens cannot legally offer; both are in violation of the Kingdom’s labor law, which states that foreign workers cannot perform jobs other than the ones specified on their work visas, and sponsors cannot legally assign workers to perform labor for anyone other than the person or company specified on their work visas.

Furthermore, foreign workers who are in the black labor market are more likely to commit crimes, such as manufacturing and selling liquor or other moral crimes, including theft.

Indeed, the sponsorship system cannot be scrapped overnight. An immediate move to abrogate the system would do more harm than good. We should look to the experiences of neighboring Gulf states that recently scrapped their respective sponsorship systems. 

It is essential that we regulate the current job market by putting an end to covert abuse of the system. Those sponsors who engage in such illegal activities should also be penalized stringently. We should establish a strategy to eventually installing an alternative to the current sponsorship system.