Worker exodus affects life in cities

Residents of Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam are faced with a peculiar problem in the wake of government efforts to weed out illegals from the country. They are being forced to cough up extra riyals for menial jobs like washing vehicles and even fixing faucets.
The exodus of illegal workers following the amnesty has literally caught the residents napping, who were used to having the luxury of having their cars shining bright when they wanted to use it. But, with illegal residents by the thousands leaving the Kingdom, the demand for car cleaners has gone up tremendously.
Over 300,000 illegal workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Nepal and Sri Lanka are being sent to their respective countries through various deportation centers, which has caused a vacuum in the unorganized work sector.
Illegals in the country, according to the government decision, will have to cough up a penalty of SR 100,000 besides facing the prospect of a two-year imprisonment if they fail to comply with the July 3 deadline.
Abdullah, who works for a publishing house, narrated his woes to Arab News about how an expatriate Bangladeshi worker who used to wash his vehicle regularly for the past three years suddenly went missing. “He has probably left the Kingdom under the amnesty program,” he said, adding that he found another person to wash his vehicle with great difficulty. But then he is now paying SR 90 a month against SR 50 that he used to pay the Bangladeshi.
Another expatriate, Hameed Moulana, 35, said: “The dozens of car cleaners who were waiting to do a quick wash of your car at an affordable price at almost every shopping mall and supermarket have virtually disappeared overnight resulting in more dirty cars on the road than before.”
“A trip to the supermarket was always considered as a two-in-one job, but unfortunately, we miss that now!” he said..
A restaurant manager in the city said the number of clients coming to his joint had dropped drastically. “Most of the restaurants are facing similar problems, which is a cause for concern among restaurant managers,” he said.
A Yemeni expatriate, who supplies gas cylinders to city restaurants, said that earlier he used to supply on average three cylinders to each restaurant. But now it has come down to one gas cylinder to a restaurant since fuel consumption is comparatively low because of lack of consumer patronage.
Mohammed Naseem, who works as an administrator in an office, said there was a definite dearth of technical hands because of the exodus of skilled hands who were nevertheless living as illegals. “The other day I had to pay SR 200 for a small job like repairing a water cooler which normally would have cost me just SR 50, ” he said.