Posted on 07/11/2018 11:02:31 PM PDT by Cronos
As of April, more than 800,000 had left the country since late 2016, alarming domestic companies concerned that the foreigners cannot be easily replaced.
..Saudi business owners are having difficulty getting locals, accustomed to undemanding work in the state sector and generous unemployment benefits, to work for them. Reports suggest many Saudis are put off by what they regard as poorly paid, low-status jobs.
.."Employers say young Saudi men and women are lazy and are not interested in working and accuse Saudi youth of preferring to stay at home rather than to take a low-paying job that does not befit the social status of a Saudi job seeker,"
MBS hopes to generate some $17.33 billion through the new expat taxes by 2020 in order to help address the budget deficit — projected to be $52 billion in 2018 — and finance new economic projects. ..."Taxation of expatriates, before Saudi Arabia turns into a productive economy that depends on industry, is like putting the cart before the horse," Tariq A. Al Maeena, a Jeddah-based commentator, said in Gulf News in October.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I’m not even sure I know what the author means by ex-pats. I presume it means expatriates, but is it foreigners who left or Saudis? Where would 800,000 people working low paying jobs go?
Duarte is prohibiting Filipinos from working there. Not sure if that accounts for all 800,000
Yep , the real reason they let women drive... could not have drivers anymore
Thanks. Now I wonder how and why Filipinos went to Saudi Arabia. That’s a long trip and where did they emigrate to? Back to the Philippines? I agree that 800,000 is a lot of people.
Foreigners working in Saudi have been leaving.
They are going home mostly. Much of this is due to Saudi business laying them off due to hard times - low oil prices reducing Saudi consumer spending.
No, Duterte is not preventing Filipinos from working in Saudi. That was Kuwait, and Duterte just suggested they leave.
I have the same confusion. Doesn’t the author understand that the word expat is a subjective descriptor? Like left and right? It depends what country you are expatriate from.
800K will be Filipinos, Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Somalis, Yemenis, Egyptians and Ethiopians and Sudanese
Why? money, pure and simple. A horrible life for them, but they were able to make money to send home to their families
I guess this is is what happens when you enslave workers and rape foreign women?
I think three factors fell into play.
1. Via social media, the ‘expats’ started to compare problems working in Saudi Arabia, and just said enough is enough.
2. Money is tight for projects and hired labor. I suspect that some employers cut pay scales, and folks refused to work for less.
3. This hiring crisis is a long-term deal. If these 800,000 folks refuse to return, and they can’t find alternate hirees...local Saudis won’t work (for any amount of money) on physical-labor jobs.
I’ll predict the next decade is a period with turmoil in the kingdom, and you start to see some Saudis exit the country (maybe to Lebanon...maybe to Germany...maybe to the US).
Maybe the Saudis can take in all those refugees who fled to Europe.
Is the entire Bush family still in Saudi working at the Royal massage parlor?
One of his first goals was to raise $100 billion by selling 10% of Saudi Aramco to stock investors. That idea is completely cockeyed on several levels.
Anyway, the sale was postponed once to 2018, and is likely to be postponed again to 2019, because no one can figure out how to value it.
His idea to Saudi-ize the workforce and industrialize the economy is more pipe dreaming.
Unlike the Chinese industrial miracle, Saudi Arabia does not have 200 million impoverished peasant farmers who are willing to do mind numbing factory work in order to slightly improve their meager standard of living.
At his current pace of “reform,” especially after extorting $100 billion from dozens of Saudi Princes and oligarchs, the Prince will be lucky to avoid a coup d’état, and even more lucky to survive it.
I believe Malaysia has taken similar steps.
“I’m not even sure I know what the author means by ex-pats.”
I am pretty sure what the author meant was foreign workers.
Thank you! I sick to death of poorly written articles that are appearing all over FR. It’s not FR’s fault, of course, it is the fault of young journalists who can’t write and can’t define words with any accuracy. Are they Saudis or are they foreign nationals?
Ha! Saudis dont work! All the white collar / clerical jobs are filled by Indians and Pakistanis. A lot of the technician positions are Filipinos. The Sri Lankans and the Bangladeshis do most of the menial dirty jobs. We had two Saudis in our office when I worked there. They would be in the office about four hours a day. Whether or not they ever did any work is unclear.
Syrian refugees? Nah, that would be too easy.
There’s plenty of Palestinians available.
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