By Talal Al-Qashghary
As a policy, Saudization was designed in 1975 to replace expatriate workers in the private sector with Saudis. At the time, the Saudi-expatriate ratio was one Saudi for three expatriates. The public was not satisfied with this ratio and so the authorities decided to introduce a Saudization policy. Every Saudi was happy when the policy was announced.
Today, after 41 years, I can say with a lot of confidence that the above ratio has not changed. On the contrary, it has increased in favor of expatriate workers (one Saudi for six or seven expatriate workers). There are no official statistics on this. However, we do not require statistics as the reality on the ground speaks louder.
This means that Saudization has failed or rather died without achieving its goal. Could it have failed because many viewed it as discriminatory? This could be. Many authorities still believe that Saudization is still alive and is being implemented in all sectors of the Kingdom’s economy. However, unemployment is on the increase and there are thousands of Saudis who remain jobless and who continue to search for jobs.
Go to any government agency and you will see young Saudi men holding green folders searching for jobs. You will also see them in the private sector going from one company to another to drop off their CVs and hoping to get jobs.
Do you know what the irony here is? The people who receive these folders and tell these Saudis whether there are jobs available for them are expatriates. We should remember that for each non-Saudi who gets hired by a company, there is one Saudi who is jobless.
