85% expats have only secondary school education – still, they are employed

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is like a heaven for the expats working here from around the world. With a strong economy, progressive construction work, oil refineries and hundreds of multinational companies having their offices set up in the land, people from around the globe look forward to work in the Kingdom in order to make a profound living along with a safe working environment and complete labor rights.

After the oil revolution, many of the construction giants and other multinational companies invested their money in this area, developing it and created a lot of jobs.

In due course, a lot of expats from other countries took this opportunity and due to lower education criteria required for labor class work, joined in. They moved to Saudi Arabia.

Now, most of the companies in Saudi Arabia, both on the government level and private sector have hired people who are no more educated than a primary or secondary level.

Some surveys quoting the figure up to 85 percent, raises a lot of questions, and this is not the first time, this statement is raised multiple times in the past.

But recently this statement was highlighted by the Labor minister. It was said that 85% is a large number and have a great impact on the jobs of the private sector and Saudization policies.

Most of the qualified workers are still unemployed, while the unqualified are employed, this is a major point to ponder over. The question is, does the majority qualified staff with college degrees do not meet the labor market demands?

While analyzing the activities of the private sector, it was said that 66% of business are active in commerce and contracting. The business and contracting sectors do not require qualified workers, this is the reason they hire a large number of unqualified staff.

The workers are well qualified or not, this thing does not bother them. This is indeed a large number to talk about, and a shocking moment to think that labor market hires a large number of unqualified staff.

The question arises about the demands of the labor market and the qualification of the Saudi students who are graduated from college.

If the labor market does not require any degree to grant employment than why the people of Saudi Arabia blame that our education system and universities does do not train the Saudi students according to the requirement of the business market.

Moreover, many Saudi students who were abroad to get a higher education are back to their homeland but unable to find a good job or meet their family requirement, because of the market mostly hiring unqualified expatriates.

It might be because the expats visit Kingdom to earn a better living for their family, and even on a low pay scale, they manage to scoop enough money to send them back to their homeland whereas the same wage would be insufficient for someone having their families in the Kingdom.

The local currency, Saudi Riyal is strong compared to the currency of the third world and underdevelopment countries. This is the core reason private firms hire less educated personals because they have to pay less and get their tasks done at cheap prices.

Source: Saudi Gazette