RIYADH, 5 December 2006 — Minister of Labor Ghazi Al-Gosaibi said yesterday that his ministry would not go easy on establishments and institutions that attempt to illegally skirt Saudization quotas.
“There are systemized penalties,” he said during a graduation ceremony of Al-Rimaizan Training Center in Riyadh yesterday where a batch of newly trained Saudis received their certifications. “Penalties can go up to the person or establishment being forbidden from applying for loans or services.”
Al-Gosaibi last week announced that the official unemployment rate in the Kingdom is 9 percent for men and 22 percent for women.
In an attempt to spur employment among Saudi nationals, the Kingdom in recent years required companies to reserve a percentage of their jobs for citizens. Companies routinely skirt these quotas through falsified paperwork or temporary Saudi hires.
Al-Gosaibi said insufficient training was a major factor in unemployment in the Kingdom, as well as the tendency for some companies to skirt their Saudi quotas. The minister said that Saudi youths who have not been trained should not consider applying for jobs.
“The Saudi market has no place for untrained Saudis,” he said while refuting charges that his ministry has dealt with alleged lawbreaking companies in an unfair manner.
The minister said that the unemployment problem among Saudi nationals would be something of the past in the next five years.
“The General Organization for Vocational Education and Technical Training with the cooperation of the private sector has programs to train 400,000 Saudis,” he said, adding that once those Saudis graduated they would fill in the gaps in the job market and replace non-Saudis in technical jobs.
Commenting on the issue of the abuse of foreign guest workers by their Saudi sponsors, Al-Gosaibi said such workers have “full rights”, just like their Saudi compatriots, to pursue legal channels to address these abuses. “If it comes to our attention that any worker — Saudi or non-Saudi — has been treated unfairly the perpetrator will be punished,” he said.
Ending unemployment in the Kingdom was a joint responsibility of the public and private sectors, said the minister, adding that in order to facilitate coordination between the government and commercial sectors, regular meetings are held at the country’s chambers of commerce and industry.
Al-Rimaizan, a Saudi jewelry manufacturer, recently attempted to abide by the government-imposed 50-percent quota for workers in this industry, only to discover that the company could not recruit enough skilled Saudis for the job.
The government eventually backed down from its attempts to Saudize half of the workforce in this sector.
