Labour costs soar in Saudi Arabia after migrant exodus

November 9, 2013

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Riyadh, Nov 9: Saudis have begun complaining of surging labour costs following the exodus of a million foreign workers, although economists insist there will be long-term planning benefits from fully regulating the market.

Professionals in the kingdom, both Saudi and expatriate, say the freelance tradesmen who used to queue for odd jobs in public squares have virtually disappeared since police patrols began the strict enforcement of tough labour laws this week, rounding up thousands of illegals for deportation.

They have been forced to turn instead to authorised service companies, which charge double the rate or more to hire out electricians or plumbers.

“I had great difficulty finding a carpenter even at a higher price,” complained primary school teacher Majed Hasan.

“I have been told that freelance carpenters have disappeared. I went to a services company and was told that they can provide me with a carpenter for 150 riyals ($40) — double what I used to pay.”

From Monday, the authorities began rounding up thousands of illegal foreign workers following the expiry of a final amnesty for them to regularise their work status in the kingdom.

Those considered illegal range from overstaying visitors and pilgrims who seek jobs, to shop assistants and day labourers working for someone other than their official sponsor, a requirement in Saudi Arabia as in most other Gulf states.

Nearly a million migrants — Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Indians, Nepalis, Pakistanis and Yemenis among them — took advantage of the amnesty to leave the country.

Another roughly four million regularised their situation by finding employers to sponsor them but in so doing virtually emptied the market of cheap freelance labour.

“I usually find a plumber quickly. This time, I’ve roamed three areas and I couldn’t find a single one,” complained Mahmud Badr, an Egyptian doctor who lives in the kingdom’s commercial capital Jeddah. He said he was shocked by “how service workers vanished, after they were so easy to find” queueing in public squares for the chance to earn a few dollars.

Companies employing low-paid foreigners have to pay for a permit to recruit their staff, in addition to recurring fees for annual residency permits, making their charges far higher than those of freelance illegals.

“It has been so difficult to find a worker since the crackdown began,” complained Saudi Abu Maher, as he haggled with an electrician about the price to fix his satellite television receiver.

“If you find one, it is tough to agree a deal because he asks for a high price... The cost of labour has doubled over the past two days.”

But Saudi economists insist that the short-term hit to the pockets of professionals will be outweighed by the longer-term benefits in terms of more efficient planning of the Arab world’s largest economy.

“This will have a negative impact in the short term, but it will positively affect the economy in the medium and long term,” said Fawaz Al Alami, a onetime head of the Saudi team that negotiated the kingdom’s accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2005.

“Most of the departing workforce represent an oversupply in the market,” he said.

“Had the market needed these workers, their status would have been regularised.”

Economist Ihsan Bu Hulaiga said the existence of the large pool of illegal workers had long been an obstacle to efficient planning.

“The flushing out of illegals will ... help in controlling the grey economy,” Bu Hulaiga told Saudi daily Arab News.

“Once illegal expats are sent back home, we can enumerate the total strength of the legal workforce in the kingdom, what they do and which cities they are based in. This will be relevant to analyse and formulate business policies for the future.”

Expatriates account for a full nine million of the oil-rich kingdom’s 27-million-population.

The lure of work, even in low-paid jobs as domestics or construction workers, has made it a magnet for migrants from Asia as well as poorer countries in the Arab world.

But despite it huge oil wealth, Saudi Arabia has an unemployment rate of more than 12.5 per cent among its citizen population, a figure the government has long sought to cut.

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News Network
November 26,2024

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The extremist Israeli finance minister has called for the occupation of the Gaza Strip and halving the population of the Palestinian territory that is reeling from almost 14 months of genocide.  

Bezalel Smotrich, who has a history of racist statements against Palestinians, made the controversial remarks during a conference of the Yesha Council settler group on Monday.

“We can occupy Gaza and thin the population by half within two years,” through encouraging the so-called “voluntary emigration," he said.

The racist minister also urged the Tel Aviv regime to use its favorable ties with the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump to implement the plan.

“Occupying Gaza is not a dirty word,” he further claimed.

Once the success of the “voluntary emigration" is proven in the besieged Gaza Strip, it can be replicated in the occupied West Bank, he added.

Last month, Smotrich urged the full annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, asserting that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

Israel launched its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

However, nearly 14 months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its declared objectives of finding captives held in Gaza and eliminating Hamas.

So far, the occupying regime has killed at least 44,235 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 104,638 others, in Gaza. 

It has been committing the war crimes of starvation and of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population in the besieged territory.

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November 21,2024

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant over war crimes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber I issued warrants of arrest for Netanyahu and Gallant "for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the Prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest”, it confirmed in a statement Thursday.

It is the first instance in the court's 22-year history it has issued arrest warrants for Western-allied senior officials.

In its statement, the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber I, a panel of three judges, said it has rejected appeals by Israel challenging its jurisdiction. 

The chamber said it has decided to release the arrest warrants because "conduct similar to that addressed in the warrant of arrest appears to be ongoing", referring to Israel's ongoing onslaught on Gaza.

Netanyahu and Gallant, it said, “each bear criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts,” as well as “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”

All 124 states that signed the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court, are now under an obligation to arrest the wanted individuals and hand them over to the ICC in the Hague. 

The court relies on the cooperation of member states to arrest and surrender suspects. The Netherlands' foreign minister quickly said his country was prepared to enforce the warrants while 93 nations earlier reiterated their support for the ICC.

Triestino Mariniello, a lawyer representing Palestinian victims at the ICC, called the warrants "a historic decision".

He noted that the court had endured "pressure and threats of sanctions" from the US government, but acted nonetheless.

As expected, the Tel Aviv regime rejected the rulings, with its security minister Itamar Ben Gvir calling the warrants “anti-Semitic through and through.”

The ICC said Israel’s acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction was not required.

Israel and its major ally, the United States, are not members of the court. 

Israel unleashed its bloody Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023. So far, it has killed at least 43,985 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 104,092 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel faces an ongoing South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

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November 21,2024

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Hamas says the Israeli regime’s sole objective lies in “erasing” the entirety of the Palestinian population from across the Palestinian territories.

Khalil al-Hayya, a ranking official with the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement, made the remarks to the Palestinian al-Aqsa TV on Wednesday.

“The occupation targets everyone—it strikes hospitals, civil defense, women, children, and the elderly,” he said, adding that the regime sought to “empty Gaza of its residents, and displace the Palestinian people to fulfill its dreams of building a Zionist Jewish state across all of Palestine.”

The remarks came amid the regime’s October 2023-present war of genocide on the coastal sliver that has so far claimed the lives of nearly 44,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

“This unprecedented aggression in modern times evokes scenes from the dark ages of human history, having crossed all red lines and exceeded every expectation of brutality in the modern era,” the Palestinian official lamented.

He also regretted that the regime had added “systematic and dangerous starvation to its aggression, falsely claiming before the world that it allows 250 [aid] trucks into Gaza daily. In reality, the number of trucks is far fewer.”

Hayya, meanwhile, regretted that “scenes of children torn apart, women screaming over their children, and heart-wrenching destruction have failed to stir enough humanity to stop these crimes.”

He decried the United States for vetoing the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions that are aimed at bringing about a potential ceasefire in the war, saying this indicated Washington’s “partnership in the aggression” and a simultaneous siege that the Israeli regime has been enforcing on Gaza.

Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the official asserted that, despite what the Israeli official is after, Hamas would not hand over the regime’s captives “without [the regime’s] stopping the war.”

He called Netanyahu “the main obstacle” in the way of cessation of the aggression, saying the Israeli premier “blocks any progress for political reasons,” and citing his preventing conclusion of a ceasefire agreement in July.

Hayya also warned that the regime sought to expand the war beyond Gaza, but asserted that its goals are “impossible and will never happen.”

“Today, the enemy exposes its true intentions of extermination and displacement, but it will fail,” he stressed.

“The Palestinian people are resilient and will not surrender, as they believe in their humanitarian and political cause. The enemy and its allies will not succeed in achieving their goals. This steadfast people will endure, and the occupation will not prevail against them.”

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