Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Starting Jan. 1, foreign engineers with less than five years of experience will no longer be recruited, the Saudi Council of Engineers has confirmed.

Engineering companies involved in urgent projects have been given a three-month deadline to terminate the contracts of inexperienced engineers who applied for recruitment before the decision.

Expatriate engineers will also have to undergo a professional test and a personal interview to ensure that they are familiar with the profession and its specialization.

The new rule overrides a previous decision by the Saudi Council of Engineers which required a three-year experience, a personal interview and a professional test as minimum conditions for the recruitment of expatriate engineers.

The Council stressed that engineers will bear the consequences if submitted documents fail to prove the required experience.

The aim of this decision is to provide the opportunity for Saudi engineers, to create jobs for them in the engineering sector, and to empower them so that they can gain experience in engineering fields.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Development has supported the decision of the Saudi Council of Engineers to stop recruiting expatriate engineers with less than five years of professional experience.

In August, the Ministry of Labor and Social Development (MLSD) and Saudi Council of Engineers (SCE) reached an agreement to stop recruitment of expatriate engineers with professional experience of less than five years.

Dr. Jameel Al-Baq’awi, chairman of the SCE, and Dr. Ahmed Al-Qattan, undersecretary for labor policies in the ministry, said the agreement would provide more jobs to Saudi engineers in the government and private sectors.