Saudization: Raids for New Labour Laws by Saudi Government

Saudi Arabia’s private sector heavily relies upon the imported manpower. Now the private sector companies are under immense pressure due to Government’s increasing raids to filter out the illegal workers. A Jeddah based company’s CEO said that getting Saudi technical and qualified staff is a big problem in itself. The salary paid to one Saudi employee is good enough to employ three foreigners. The situation is getting complex as employers are sending those workers who are either illegal or are not on the company’s sponsorship on indefinite leave without pay in order to avoid the raids. Some companies have appointed persons whose duty is to inform the employees about any raid and they can manage to escape.

It is reported that following the raids conducted by the Government on labour, many international schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are observing teaching staff crisis. The teachers hired through non-official channels prefer to stay at home to avoid labour team inspection. New labour laws state that international schools cannot hire those teachers who are not sponsored by the school. Earlier the trend was to hire such female teachers, who moved to the Kingdom with their spouses and were actually encouraged to teach in private schools even they had no work permits.

Government however denied any such rumours. The Government sources said that no inspections of schools are scheduled by the labour departments. If education ministry finds something out regarding this, they will deal with it. If new rules are applied, around 60 international schools only in Jeddah are in danger of being closed. The primary reason is that, in Saudi Arabia there aren’t enough male and female teachers who can teach in English. A lot of time is required before Saudi Arabia can train its own citizens to take up the teaching jobs. Overall more than 250 schools across the Kingdom will close with the implementation of the new laws. Jeddah Islamic Port is also hit hard as the drivers and employees who are not on the sponsorship of companies have not been allowed to go inside and work.

Jawadat & Saudi Government Action in Pictures (Real Face)

Overall almost each and every part of the society is going to be affected by this Saudization fever and Government should look for the alternates before they implement these new laws.