The Saudi's Crackdown on Illegal Immigrant Workers

The government pushed ahead with a nationwide crackdown on undocumented foreign laborers in an effort to overhaul the labor market, sparking deadly clashes between Saudis and foreign workers here on Sunday. 

The fighting—a rare eruption of unrest in this tightly policed city—marks the most fraught moment yet for the oil kingdom's more-than-two-year campaign to restructure its labor market, which economists say is unsustainably dependent on millions of low-paid Asian and African workers.

Two people died Sunday and at least 68 people were wounded in a stone-throwing street fight in Riyadh's Manfouah district of African migrant workers, said police, who arrested 561 workers. 

[...] 

The government has arrested thousands of laborers since beginning its crackdown this month following the Nov. 3 end of a seven-month grace period for foreign workers to regularize their status. During that period, four million foreign workers did so, and about a million left the country, Saudi officials said. It isn't clear how many illegal workers remain.

After decades of only halfheartedly enforced programs to increase employment of Saudi citizens, Saudi Arabia has been pursuing what economists say are essential structural overhauls in the oil-reliant Saudi economy. 

Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter and holds the world's fourth-largest foreign reserves. But the country also has a fast-growing population in which two-thirds of the citizens are under 30, a Saudi labor force that grows by 3.5% each year and a government that depends on oil revenue for 90% of budget revenue.

A decadeslong addiction to low-wage, low-skilled foreign workers has stunted Saudi Arabia's economy so that as of 2010, only 6.5% of working-age Saudis hold jobs in the private sector, says Steffen Hertog, a lecturer in comparative politics at the London School of Economics. 

Despite the kingdom's wealth, the fast-growing population and government subsidies of fuel and other staples means that Saudi Arabia is on track to become an oil importer by 2030, Citibank researchers and others say. 

The government is requiring businesses to hire more Saudis and requiring foreign workers and their families—who made up almost a third of Saudi Arabia's population of 30 million—to remedy any irregularities in their papers or leave Saudi Arabia.

Read the full Story HERE and watch a related video below:

(CLICK PHOTO below to open pop-up window with video)

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here.
Please follow us on Twitter here.