By Hala Al-Qahtani
THE rate of Saudi workers is high in some companies and government corporations but this does not deny the fact that employment of foreigners costs the state three times more than employing Saudis. Unfortunately, there is a growing tendency to appoint foreigners as heads of projects at private companies and investment firms without any justification.
As a result of this trend qualified citizens are denied key positions and many of them remain unemployed. Most Saudi job seekers are highly qualified compared to their foreign counterparts and have obtained their degrees from reputable universities inside and outside the Kingdom.
The recruitment of a foreign mechanical engineer last week to work for King Abdulaziz International Airport expansion project on a monthly salary of SR40,000 created a hue and cry. We don’t know whether that engineer had registered with the Council of Saudi Engineers, which has strict procedures to verify certificates. Engineers are required to register with the council before applying for work permits in the Kingdom.
The company made the appointment circumventing regulations of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development. The ministry had decided to stop issuing new visas until the labor market is properly organized. The new recruitment sends a wrong message that private firms do not take the ministry’s regulations and directives seriously.
If a company involved in the development of Jeddah airport circumvented the ministry’s rules, other companies would also be doing the same as long as they do not face any questioning by the ministry. We know that the appointment was not for a rare specialization and it occurred when more than 7,000 Saudi engineers seek jobs after private companies have refused to appoint them.
The company claimed that it was making such an appointment for the first time and blamed the ministry for not regularizing status of its workers. If we check Linked-In portal of professionals we can find that it’s run by an Asian mafia with many members who have obtained citizenship of Western countries. Many companies now rely on this portal to fill their job requirements.
These workers are appointed in HR departments and recruitment firms in the Kingdom and abroad. They publish ads on lucrative jobs and collect CVs of prospective jobseekers and then close the recruitment process. After sometime, we see that they have appointed an Asian whom they selected much in advance before publicizing the vacancy.
In most private companies you can find a lobbying group from a specific foreign country who manages everything in a professional way. They take the highest positions in a company and try to harm Saudi workers and drive them out citing various reasons. They have hegemony in the private sector and they believe Saudization would reduce job prospects of their compatriots.
We have seen an Asian worker giving a warning on Linked In not to employ Saudis telling lies that reflect his hatred toward people of this country. In fact, we are not against employment of foreigners in public and private sectors but against the blind confidence that enable them to get jobs easily. I wonder why the Ministry of Labor and Social Development close its eyes on such companies while imposing Saudization regulations on small shops that pay meager salaries.
The ministry has claimed that it would go ahead with the plan to raise the Saudization rate. But it has lost credibility by refusing to change Article 77 that stands in the way of increased Saudization. We believe that the article was included in the Labor Law intentionally to fire Saudi workers from private companies to seek jobs in small shops. In this situation we have the right to know the ministry’s plan to create jobs for the large number of newly graduated engineers.
The former labor minister had stated that the Kingdom would require about 1.3 million jobs to bring down unemployment rate to 7 percent. But by the third quarter of this year, the reality was quite the opposite – unemployment rate rose to 12 percent. This situation should encourage the ministry to take more drastic measures to employ Saudis and protect their rights as well as to put an end to the colonization of the employment market and improve the condition of Saudi workers.
