Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Labour, which is spearheading the kingdom’s drive to Saudize a section of its expat-dominated labour force, has warned that it will launch a crackdown on illegal workers after the July 3 deadline.

A senior Labour Ministry official warned that offices, shops, factories and even homes would be raided to flush out illegal workers, Saudi media reported. “Even private residences will be checked to ensure there are no illegally employed workers,” Arab News quoted the Director-General of the ministry’s provincial office in Riyadh, the capital city, as saying. Even government offices and schools would be raided. Anyone found working illegally would be arrested and deported immediately without giving another chance to rectify their visa status. The Labour Ministry officials would be assisted in the raids by the Home Ministry, Passport Department and police.

Grace period

The Ministry, which had earlier set a deadline to correct the visa status of illegal workers, later allowed a three-month grace period. That will expire on July 3, along with the deadline for the Nitaqat programme.

Nitaqat stipulates that at least one-tenth of the staff of any enterprise should be Saudis and assigned a colour coding for enterprises at different levels of compliance. Those which totally failed to comply with the norm are in the ‘red.’ The ‘red’ enterprises would have to close shops, but their workers are permitted to transfer to enterprises in the ‘green’ category.

Illegal workers

Saudi Arabia has at least two million illegal workers too. Most of these illegal workers, who do not have the necessary work licence and residency permit, hail from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The Saudi Government allowed these workers to either correct their visa status or leave the country without any punishment or penalty before the grace period ends. Consequently, thousands of illegal workers are swamping these countries’ diplomatic missions in the kingdom. In their bid to get the necessary papers from the missions so that they can go home and return to Saudi Arabia as legal workers, the workers are camping outside the missions.

Jobs for Saudi youth

Saudi Arabia, which has one of the highest unemployment rates for its nationals in West Asia, is trying to create jobs for Saudi youth by cutting the number of expats in select sectors. However, since the youths are not willing to work in low-paid and manual jobs, these jobs are expected to remain open for migrant workers arriving with proper documents.

basheer.kpm@thehindu.co.in

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