The Ministry of Civil Service has proposed forming a working team comprising the Ministry of Finance and government departments having a high concentration of expat workers to prepare a replacement plan according to a specific timetable to be referred to the Civil Service Council. The decision of the Council will be binding on the government departments and the ministries of civil service and finance. This came in the light of official reports issued by the Civil Service Ministry that there were 147,750 vacant posts in 2008 in various government departments, forming 15.11 percent of the approved jobs with an increase of 55,403 jobs compared to the vacancies in 2007. Meanwhile, jobs occupied by non-Saudis in the government sector reached 68,990 out of a total of 829,000. Last year, contracts were signed for government jobs with 7,276 expat workers after no Saudis could fill the vacant positions. This shows an increase of 1,323 jobs for expat workers in 2008 compared to 2007. The report showed that 5,942 vacancies existed in the health sector, with an increase of 1,103 compared to 2007. In the teaching sector, there were 1143 vacant posts, with an increase of 231 compared to the previous year. There were 191 vacancies in other sectors. The Ministry of Civil Service said it terminated the contracts of 7,565 non-Saudi employees, showing an increase of 1,127 lay-offs compared to 2007. In addition, the services of 12,990 Saudis occupying permanent jobs were terminated. The Ministry of Civil Service criticized what it described as violations by some government agencies in implementing its regulations. It said some supervisors and those appointed in exempted categories do not show up for duty. The same applied to some male and female teachers and some health sector employees. Such employees have been found to be carrying out financial and administrative work. Also, many non-Saudi employees were found doing jobs different from what mentioned in their contracts. Furthermore, some government departments do not respond to the observations of the Ministry of Civil Service. The ministry said it wrote to the government agencies where these violations were found. It also formed a working team to solve these problems.
