Saudi Gazette report
JEDDAH — The Saudi Ground Services Company (SGS) has hired 60 expatriates instead of Saudis on a monthly salary of SR6,000, Makkah newspaper reported.
A company source said SGS, the leading ground handling services company at all commercial airports in the Kingdom, hired expatriates to man the counters due to the little time they had to hire and train Saudis before the current Umrah season and the upcoming Haj.
“The number of pilgrims this year has increased by 20 percent. The hired expatriates are all Filipinos and their contracts are for two years. We needed to hire them for their experience in the company’s operating systems. They are qualified and trained to work with four to five operating systems,” said the source.
The source also said if they had hired Saudis they would not have the time to train them in these applications and operating systems.
“In 2017 alone, a total of 294 Saudis left the company for various reasons, including retirement. And 511 employees of other nationalities working at various airports in the Kingdom also left. We are committed to serve around 120 airlines and we needed employees who spoke their languages. We hired 60 Filipinos and 942 Saudis in 2017 with the cooperation of the Human Resources Fund. We hired 40 of the expatriate employees in Jeddah, 10 in Riyadh and 10 in Qassim,” said the source.
The source said the company supported the Saudi youth and was willing to train them in various departments.
Legal consultant Wael Jowharjy said employment is a citizen’s right and it is globally upon.
“The citizens have priority for any position over foreigners unless the job required a highly qualified candidate with special skills and experience. The counter staff do not require any such skills and therefore there was no need to recruit expatriates for those positions,” said Jowharjy.
He said the company should have invested in training Saudi candidates who are desperately waiting for jobs by giving them small salaries in the spirit of Saudi Vision 2030.
Alaa Naji, director of a legal office, said the company hired 942 Saudis and 60 expatriates.
“The expatriates constituted less than 10 percent of the total number of employees hired in the year. That is a reasonable percentage. Companies are free to hire expatriates depending on the percentage of Saudis it employed,” said Naji.
