Riyadh: Saudi Arabia's concerned departments have begun a process of opening the door for employing more national cadres, particularly in the public sector.
According to figures contain in a report from the Ministry of Civil Service, the body responsible for employing employees for the governments sectors, there are more than 75,000 posts filled by expatriates who can be replaced with Saudis.
The Ministry of Civil Service classifies any job occupied by non-Saudis as ‘vacant' till they was filled by a Saudi.
The report, forwarded to King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz noted that the approved government posts amounted to 1,098,127 of which 941,900 were filled. It added that most of the jobs occupied by expatriated were in the health sector and universities.
Last week, the Saudi Finance Minister urged the private sector to play an active role in fighting unemployment.
He said the private sector should contribute in hiring Saudis and it is time to take this issue seriously. The official figures put the Kingdom's unemployment rate at 10.5 percent, while the unofficial figures put the rate at around 20 percent.
Appearing on Saudi TV last weeks following the Royal orders in which the monarch ordered billions of riyals to boost housing, social security services and education for needy in Saudi Arabia, the finance minister said the King's decisions will have positive effect on poor, needy ones and in supporting unemployed nationals.
The Saudi government also decided to establish a committee chaired by Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz, second deputy premier and Interior Minister to review the issues of employing Saudis and set up appropriate solutions for hiring nationals in both the public and private sectors.
One of the royal orders stipulates the creation of 1200 new jobs.
According to the Ministry of Labor's data, the number of Saudis in the private sector is decreasing while the number of non-Saudis is growing. It noted that from 829,100 at the end of 2008, the number of Saudi workers in the private sector plunged by nearly 17.8 per cent to 681,500 at the end of 2009. In contrast, expatriate workers in the sector grew by around 15.2 per cent from 5.4 million to 6.2 million in the same percent, it added. To have private companies hire more Saudis, the Saudi government has imposed an annual Saudization rate to be met by every private company and establishment. Penalties, including none granting of foreign workers' visas and none awarding of government contracts among others will be applied on companies that failed to comply with these measures.
