An expatriate worker asked his employer, a businessman, to find a job for his brother. The businessman told him this: “You know I have 30 people working for me and serving my eight-member family? Suppose every day I receive seven guests at my house. That means there are 30 people serving 15 people.”
Of course, he could not find a job for the worker's brother.
I believe it is our mistake we have a large number of unskilled expatriate workers. We Saudis have become so lazy that we need others to help us at home and at work. What makes this situation worse is the fact we are not using Saudi workers. This is a common problem in most Gulf countries.
We suffer from a shortage of labor. Our forefathers used to take care of their own palm trees. Today, many Saudis hire expatriate workers to do that. The real problem is one cannot find skilled workers who know their way around palm trees.
In our country, there are around 7 million male and female expatriate workers. Some of them do not have any form of formal training.
Dr. Azizah Al-Maneh, director of human resources at Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, attributed the reason for this to employment agencies abroad, which send unskilled workers although the employment contract clearly states that a skilled worker should be provided to the employer.
Al-Maneh said several agencies overseas take advantage of the fact that the Kingdom does not have examinations that test the competence of workers recruited from abroad. That is why these agencies send over unskilled workers instead of the skilled ones agreed upon in the agreement with the employer.
I think the best way to solve this problem is to ask employment agencies overseas to pay some kind of insurance as a guarantee that they will send skilled workers. Agencies that cheat should be blacklisted.
At the same time, I urge all citizens to treat their expatriate workers with dignity and give them their financial rights as well as other rights, such as weekly and annual vacations.
Citizens should also pay workers' full wages at the end of every month without any delay. Our religion ordains that we should treat workers nicely.
