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Dr. Al-Gosaibi Targets Small Businesses Again for Saudization

Friday, 9, July, 2004 (22, Jumada al-Ula, 1425)

Abdul Wahab Bashir, Arab News
 
JEDDAH, 9 July 2004 — Saudi Arabia is planning once again to decrease its dependence on foreign workers in its effort to reduce high unemployment levels throughout the country. An earlier arrangement exempting small businesses from abiding by Saudization laws may come under review as the Ministry of Labor boosts the pace of the transition.
"... decrease its dependence on foreign workers in its effort to reduce high unemployment levels ..."

Don’t worry. That’s happening right now, Saudi Arabia just hasn’t prepared for it at all. Those "foreign workers" make possible a lot of other support and service industry jobs.
Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi said yesterday he was determined to end unemployment, reported Al-Watan newspaper. “I clarified after I was appointed minister that the ministry will adopt a 13-point program to combat the problem of unemployment. These points included curbing the need for foreign workers and raising the standards of Saudi labor,” Al-Gosaibi said.

The minister said he does not expect the problem of unemployment among Saudis to be solved in the short-term. “In regards to the question of when unemployment will be stamped out, I think it is not possible in three years but I hope it will not take longer than nine,” he said.
The only "short-term" solution is emphasizing technical education over religious teaching. That hasn’t been happening a lot and not much will change until it does.
Figures by the Ministry of Finance’s department of statistics show that some 300,000 Saudis or 10 percent of the country’s workforce are unemployed. According to official sources, Saudi Arabia is home to 24 million people, some six million of whom are foreigners.

Al-Gosaibi said he was considering requiring small firms to hire more Saudis under the Saudization program, adding that it is now time to review the arrangement granting small businesses an exception from applying Saudization regulations.
And out come the fangs of a parasitic regime. It’s almost like you could exchange Saudization with Communism. Decreeing more jobs be provided for the unskilled or unmotivated will not pay their salaries. ONE QUARTER of Saudi Arabia’s population is expatriate for a simple reason. After a decades-long running jump at how to extract and refine petroleum distillates, too few Saudis either care or are able to figure out how. This is the ultimate reward of overemphasizing religious scholarship.
“Small institutions with fewer than 20 workers have been completely exempted from Saudization, despite the fact that there is a large number of foreign workers in them. Perhaps it is the time to review that decision,” the minister said. He added that Saudization applies to all businesses, big or small, although up to now the focus has been on big companies because they are more capable of employing and training.

Al-Gosaibi said he hoped the situation regarding settling labor disputes will improve with the introduction of a new labor law currently being discussed by the Shoura Council. “I hope the situation will get better with the new system which will in the long run allow for labor disputes to be settled through Shairah courts as in the case of other disputes.” Asked about businessmen who threaten to move their activities outside the Kingdom if pressed with Saudization, Al-Gosaibi said he cannot force people who do not want to invest in their own country and do not want to employ Saudi citizens from moving their investments off-shore. He, however, hoped the threat was not a serious one.

“Do you think the solution to the (unemployment) problem lies in preventing investors from moving their businesses outside the country or in not taking measures to curb unemployment? “Every country in the world is keen on attracting investments to pave the way for its citizens to find jobs. When an investor comes and says he wants to move his business abroad and does not want to employ Saudi citizens, what can I say to him other than goodbye? I hope such a threat, which I have heard only once, is just a slip of the tongue.”
Posted by: Zenster 2004-07-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=37542