The announcement of new rules governing foreign labor in Saudi Arabia has caused consternation about the fate of Egyptian migrant workers there.
The notaqat (zones) program was announced in May by Saudi Labor Minister Adel Fakieh. It divides private sector companies into four categories, according to the number of Saudis employed. In companies where 10 percent or less of the workforce is Saudi, foreign workers who have been with the company for more than six years will not have their contracts renewed. The program excludes workers in domestic service.
Notaqat is a response to increasing unemployment in the kingdom, which currently stands at roughly 15 percent of the country’s 25 million population according to the country’s Labor Ministry website.
The Egyptian media was quick to condemn the policy as an attack on Egyptian migrant workers, who make up one third of the oil-rich kingdom’s total expatriate worker population. Some described it as a political move.
In an opinion piece published in Al-Masry Al-Youm earlier this month, for example, Hassan Nafea suggested that the policy change has political dimensions.
Nafea said that Fakieh’s statements “coincided with the departure of an Egyptian popular diplomacy delegation to Iran.” While there “may not be conclusive evidence of a correlation” between the delegation's visit and the policy change, the writer said, Egypt’s attempts at a rapprochement with Iran “clearly disturb Saudi Arabia.”
“It's unreasonable for Gulf countries, who have diplomatic and commercial ties with Iran, to request that Egypt not rush into normalizing relations with Iran. Egypt should not accept such extortion,” Nafea wrote.
Head of the Egyptian Society for Migration Studies Ayman Zohry dismissed suggestions that the policy is based on anything other than Saudi Arabia’s labor market priorities as “rumors.”
“There is nothing in the policy directed against Egyptian workers specifically,” he told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Zohry is in any case skeptical that the notaqat program will be implemented. The migration expert pointed out that the majority of Egypt’s 2.5 million migrant workers in Saudi Arabia are unskilled, and employed precisely because of the reluctance of Saudi citizens to perform menial tasks.
“It is the economy that determines policy. They need these people. Saudis will not do their jobs,” Zohry says.
This sentiment was echoed by Saudi journalist Khaled al-Suleiman, who told the Al-Arabiya satellite channel that it as an “unclear” policy of “quantity” and not “quality,” suggesting that Saudi Arabia’s foreign workforce should be evaluated on the basis of their competencies rather than their numbers.
The Egyptian Ministry of Manpower and Immigration’s response to the policy change was to organize a meeting between Egyptian Manpower Minister Ahmed Hassan al-Borai and his Saudi counterpart during an International Labour Organization meeting in Geneva.
Fakieh is reported to have told Borai that there is “categorically no intention to halt the renewal of work permits for Egyptians or dispense with the services of any Egyptian worker.”
Under the program, foreign workers currently employed in companies with no more than 10 percent Saudi employees are allowed to seek alternative employment in a company that satisfies the threshold for Saudi employment, it is unclear to what extent the country’s kafeel (sponsorship system) will allow this.
Under the kafeel system foreign workers must find a Saudi national to sponsor their presence in the country, and in some cases surrender their passport to them. Rights groups are critical of this system, saying it renders workers vulnerable to abuse by their sponsors and compromises their right to freedom of movement.
The policy represents an attempt to tackle high unemployment through the “Saudization” of the country’s private sector – which employs some 8 million expatriate workers – the country’s Labor Ministry says.
Arabnews.com quoted Fakieh as saying in May that expatriate workers cost the kingdom SR98 billion (around US$26 billion) annually through salary transfers and “put additional pressure on the country’s infrastructure and service sectors.”
Speaking on the Men al-Qahira program on the Al-Nil satellite channel, Osama al-Ghazouly, head of the Arab Center for Migration Studies, suggested that, in any case, Egypt should focus on “bringing investors to Egypt rather than exporting workers abroad.”
