JEDDAH, 5 February 2004 — Saudi Arabia hopes to reduce the number of foreign workers in the country by 50 percent within the next 10 years, according to Labor and Social Affairs Minister Dr. Ali Al-Namlah. He said the objective could be achieved by implementing a strategy of putting an upper limit on the number of foreign workers.
The strategy aims at no more than 20 percent of the Kingdom’s population being expatriate workers and their dependents. According to the plan, the number of a particular nationality must not exceed 10 percent of the total expatriate population.
At present there are seven million foreign workers in the Kingdom. Foreign manpower accounts for 35 percent of the total work force. The Kingdom relies on many of them for technical, managerial and menial jobs.
Foreigners are now barred from a range of occupations. At the beginning of the new Hijrah year, the government will restrict certain sales jobs to Saudis, specifically those in stationery shops, government and private school buffets, footwear and ready-to-wear clothes shop, and varnish and paint shops.
Hamid ibn Abdullah Saleem, director of the labor office in Taif, said jobs in shops selling children’s toys, household appliances, furniture, electrical equipment, building and plumbing materials, phones and mobile phones and their accessories, discount shops and gifts shops would also be restricted to Saudis. Other jobs to be Saudized are those dealing with frozen poultry, sheep markets, car spare parts and accessories, sewing items, abayas and other women’s dress, perfumes and nuts. He said jobs in these categories would be Saudized in three phases within three years. He noted the cooperation between the labor office and the national training program for young Saudis.
The Kingdom’s Saudization drive aims at not only finding jobs for nationals but also preventing the country’s currency going abroad. According to the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Economy and Planning, expatriate workers in the Kingdom have remitted about SR585.4 billion during the past 10 years. The ministry said that amount was equal to the funds required by the Kingdom for infrastructure projects until 2020. It also noted that the remittances by the country’s expatriates have increased by two percent annually despite the Saudization drive. The department’s report also pointed out that 100,000 Saudi job seekers enter the labor market every year and only 30,000 new jobs are available. About 95 percent of workers in the private sector are expatriates, accounting for 67 percent of the work force.
“Foreigners represent two-thirds of the total work force in the country,” the minister said, adding that the government was doing everything possible to find jobs for unemployed Saudis.
