The minister of labor and social affairs recently issued a directive identifying 25 jobs, mostly manual ones, which should be held by Saudis instead of foreigners. The process, according to the directive, will be implemented gradually over several years, starting next year.
To begin with, this attempt, like the previous ones that called for replacing foreigners with Saudis in small and medium businesses, will not work. Earlier attempts only resulted in several small businesses closing down. The latest attempt will no doubt come to the same end. This is simply because the owners of businesses which employ foreigners have found it is better for them to close down their business than try a solution which has proved a failure in the past.
Of course, nothing is impossible, but to succeed we have to learn from the past and realize why these earlier attempts at addressing this problem met with failure. The reason why they did not work in the past and may not work in the future is that Saudis are not professionally and emotionally ready to do these kinds of jobs. Otherwise, they would long ago have competed with foreigners for the jobs.
Yemenis, for example, are known for being good shopkeepers and masters at bargaining. A Saudi shop owner prefers to employ a Yemeni in his shop rather than someone of another nationality; the reason is that the Yemeni is a shrewd trader who understands the art of dealing with customers. The Yemeni is honest and will put up with staying in the shop for hours on end without complaining or showing signs of discontent. These qualities are not shared by people of all nationalities. Foreigners will agree to work for as little as SR600 a month, which no Saudi will accept. In fact, Saudi employers do not want to see their fellow citizens work for so little money.
The solution to the problem is first to prepare Saudis to take up jobs they normally shun. They must be provided with extensive vocational training and material incentives to make the jobs attractive to them. This has to be done in a way that satisfies the Saudi worker and, at the same time, puts no extra burden on the employer. Achieving the desired results depends on how officials responsible for Saudization deal with the situation.
