Riyadh newspaper SAUDIS no longer believe that expatriates working in the Kingdom are earning salaries lower than them. It is true that certain jobs do not pay well and taxi drivers, salesmen and garbage collectors are examples of workers who do not earn a lot of money. But contrary to popular belief, other workers such as plumbers, mechanics and electricians mostly run their own businesses and pay a Saudi sponsor a fixed monthly amount. These expatriates can earn up to SR30,000 a month! Recent government projects that were put on bid set the salaries of expatriate engineers between SR18,000 and SR45,000 a month. Meanwhile, the Saudi engineer working in a government department only earns SR5000 a month. Abdulrahman Al-Hakbani, an economist, said he was surprised to know that expatriate engineers are paid so much while Saudi engineers struggle to find jobs in the private sector or languish in the government sector. He pointed out that the number of expatriate engineers supervising government projects is estimated at 20,000 while the total number of Saudi engineers working in the government sector does not exceed 5000. We have to act quickly to fix the condition of Saudi engineers because it is not fair that an expatriate engineer earns a higher salary than a Saudi one. __
