Fewer jobs for expats

RIYADH: With unemployment among nationals at 20 per cent, the Saudi government has announced nationalization of 22 more job sectors, limiting the openings in those sectors to the Saudis only.

The labour departments of the Saudi government would, hence, no longer approve issuing of new visas to private sector companies here to contract expatriates for these positions. No longer would the private sector be allowed to employ foreigners in these categories. The residence permit of expatriates already working in those positions may also no longer be renewed once they expire.

The private sector is the largest employer of expatriates, including the vast majority of almost the million Pakistanis, in the kingdom. Over five million foreign workers are currently employed by the private sector — almost 96 per cent of the total workforce in the private sector, whereas the Saudis in this sector number 409,020, including women. Some Saudi women could now be seen working in various private hospitals and educational institutions of Saudi Arabia in different administrative and clerical capacities.

The jobs that have been nationalized include administrative managers and their assistants, procurement managers, secretaries, car showroom salesmen, public relation jobs, sales managers, airline-ticketing salesmen, office messengers, clerks, telephone and communications operators, storekeepers, money collectors, cashiers, money exchange clerks, postmen, information and data processors, librarians, books salesmen, building supervisors and tourist guides.

The decision also applies to some 600 Haj and several hundred Umrah offices employing thousands of expatriates. Expatriates working in these offices will now be required to be replaced by the Saudis in these Haj and Umrah offices. These offices, specially those catering to the pilgrims from South Asia, used to employ a number of Pakistanis and Indians, so as to facilitate communication with the pilgrims coming from that region.

The kingdom had nationalized 13 job sectors over the last few years, so as to tackle the menace of unemployment in the country. Last year, it banned expatriates under 40 from working in jewellery shops.

Also last year, two laws came into effect ordering corner grocery stores to hire only the Saudis and asking the private sector businesses employing more than 20 people to increase the number of nationals to 30 per cent of the workforce. As per the regulations, this percentage needs to go up by five per cent every year.

Some of the private businesses, which failed to comply with the Saudiization level, were refused visa extension. They also had to face other bottlenecks while being forced to comply with the Saudiization levels.

To encourage the private sector, the kingdom also set up an apex manpower development fund last year to help the Saudis to obtain employment in the private sector. Charging expatriate worker in the private sector SR10 every year finances the fund. The fund has already collected about SR400 million within the first 10 months of its establishment. The money thus generated is spent on training the Saudis, as well as in paying part of their salary, in the private sector for a few years.

Clash of ‘income levels’ or civilizations

Now that Washington is inclined to validate some of the formulations of Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” it is all the more evident that no sooner the Soviet Russia had vanished from the scene than the West finally succeeded in giving us a semblance of having found another adversary.

The intention — and not the pronouncements of the power that be — from Sept 11, 2000 onwards reveal that the world of Thomas Jefferson, Rousseau, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King really died that day. The principle of “might is right” rather the “unaccountability of the powerful is ruling the roost and the maxim that no one is guilty unless proved is truer in its defiance rather than in practice.

For men of letters all over the world it is not unusual to feel insecure and weak in front of the secure and the strong. There is nothing unusual in the situation. What is frightening is the growing belief that the entire regions are being made to believe that it is not the clash of civilizations but the steadily growing clash of income levels which is going to undermine the most essential fabric of ecological balance of human civilization. And mind you, the gap between the income- levels is not constant. It is steadily widening. Quite a few regions of the world are receding to the graphs of income levels obtaining in the 1960s — a situation which is quite novel and speaks volumes for the main clash which is growing large. The poor are being rendered poorer in many countries — even in the USA and the West. The poor of rich countries could afford to become a bit poorer but not the poor of the poor countries. At least it made news. It spurred some leaders to do some thing: to organize, to protest and to dream of a much-yearned-for tomorrow when everything will be in place and symmetrical. Not now, any more.

I won’t go to a dyed-in-the-wool socialist to tell me what went wrong and where for us to be in this state of affairs. I have on my study table a fairly recent issue of Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Documentation (No 44). On Page 11 of the issue is its President, Christian Krouse’s address and he has said it all, in the mellowest of words. “It is interesting that this century is ending the way it began, with an open question: what will be the source of the decisive influence on culture in the future... A new political space is emerging. Europe is extending itself, establishing its basic institutions and using one single currency. In addition, the various European cultures are running up against, then interpreting one another and have to come some agreements...”.

Mr Krouse goes on further and admits that the issue of culture is a key issue. The hypothesis of a time of testing for culture seems to be coming true. He is of the opinion that since culture, at its core, is also religion, it is no exaggeration to speak of a time testing for religion also. The dialogue of culture must consequently be followed by a dialogue of religions. As the world is open for an interconfessional, interreligious and intercultural exchange it is drawing closer at a terrific speed which has rendered the concept of the sovereignty of state a relic of the past. Every day the modern communications system is making possible worldwide financial transaction to a volume of 1.5 trillions of dollars. But deep down every dialogue there is a need for a dialogue which is almost dead. This stalemate is resulting in a cleavage which has bypassed religions.

Take for example Africa: income per person in many African specially sub-Saharan region countries has fallen back to its 1960s level — dollars 100-150 levels. At least one country has touched 50 dollars a year figure. How could the poor people keep their body and soul together. Only 12 per cent of the world’s population belongs to the well-off middle class which profits from the globalization of markets and the torrents of financial benefits and consumer goods.

Hence the present era, Mr Krouse maintains, is not only the century of world-wide systems which bind us together, but also an era of widening splits among us and tremendous centrifugal forces are threatening world peace.

So the prime need is to ensure that the world remain a secure place to live because the globalization seems to be threatening that emotional cohesion of the world’s citizenry. Neither countries are safe places to think of the future nor are homes. Over 22 million people of the world have left their homes in order to escape from hardship, civil war and poverty. Peter Sloterdjik, a German philosopher, has aptly remarked that with the end of settled civilization, the concept of home has entered an age of permanent crisis. The walls of traditional societies are becoming full of holes. The globalization of the world economy is leading to globalization of security agencies. It appears that national sovereignty is not only being affected in economic domain but also in the law and order field. One keeps on hearing that the investigation teams from one country are keen on apprehending ‘suspects’ they are interested in.

In Urdu writings of Pakistan one feels that Pakistani writers are very much concerned about the erosion of national sovereignty and erosion of the concept of “home’ as the fortress of security. Some poems and short stories of young poets have added this concern to the list of themes which engaged their attention. The recent issues of Funoon, Auraq, Adab-i-Lateef and Takhleeq have quite a few writings to show this trend.

Isn’t it the spill-over effect of globalization?