Okaz daily

The number of expatriate workers in our country has reached 13 million. I am almost certain that they work as engineers, consultants, directors, deputy directors and laborers. Of course, they are from different countries.

Sources told Okaz daily that there are five nationalities that dominate jobs in the Kingdom. There are 3 million Indian workers, 2.5 million Pakistani workers, 2.2 million Egyptian workers, 1.4 million Yemeni workers and 1.2 million Bangladeshi workers in the Kingdom. The total number of workers hailing from these five nationalities has reached 10.3 million while the official workforce survey indicates that the number of expatriate workers from all nationalities has reached 13 million. This proves that workers from these five nationalities control jobs in the market.

Not long ago, Okaz published a story that around 907,000 Saudis were looking for jobs and that women constituted almost 80 percent of the unemployed at 688,000 individuals. The report was published by the General Authority of Statistics and represented the figures for the first quarter of 2017. It indicated that 75.84 percent of women continue to look for jobs and that the total number of male job seekers is 219,017.

The shocking part about the report is that 79.74 percent of Saudi jobseekers have been unemployed for 14 years with women constituting 55.1 percent. In other words, around 398,038 women have remained jobless for 14 years compared to 324,872 men.

We all agree that expatriate workers use the Kingdom’s resources such as roads, hospitals, etc. Many of them own dilapidated cars that travel on our roads, causing traffic jams and accidents.

Al-Weam electronic newspaper reported that a source in the Ministry of Health said that 49 percent of expatriate workers, mainly from South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, have forged their health certificates and that the ministry was carrying out checks to see whether their certificates were authentic or forged.