Thousands of Indians, especially Malayalis employed in Saudi Arabia, may be impacted by a new work policy of the kingdom that seeks to reserve a certain percentage of jobs for locals. According to the new Nitaqat policy – or Saudisation programme – of the kingdom, 10 percent of jobs are to be reserved for locals. The policy is aimed at expanding employment opportunities for Saudi nationals.
There are over two million Indians working in Saudi Arabia, including 576,000 from Kerala alone. External affairs minister Salman Khurshid said on Monday evening there was no need to panic and the Indian government would provide assistance to Indians forced to return from Saudi Arabia.
The Nitaqat programme that came into force recently will hit an estimated 1.5 million Indians working in the West Asian nation the hardest. Faced by the prospect of lakhs of unemployed workers returning to India, the Centre has decided to send a ministerial delegation headed by overseas Indian affairs minister Vayalar Ravi to hold talks with the Saudi government.
The bulk of the workers come from Kerala andAndhra Pradesh and the state governments are under immense pressure. Indians in Saudi Arabia have been remitting around $3.5 billion annually. This is the largest amount of inward flow of foreign exchangefrom any single country. Around 1.5 million Indians are working in Saudi Arabia, of whom around 85% are in the blue-collar category.
“The Kerala government is setting up help desks at the three international airports at Thiruvananthapuram, Calicut and Kochi and 24-hour call centres to help people in distress,” an official of the department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs (NORKA) was cited as saying.
After the Arab Spring, which resulted in the overthrowing of regimes in Egypt and other countries in West Asia and North Africa, the Saudi monarchy is making a renewed push to reduce unemployment. A study — conducted by the Saudi Central Department of Statistics and Information — fixed the unemployment rate in the country last year at 12.2%. That meant that more than 588,000 people were without jobs. The Nitaqat system is a process designed to boost employment of locals. The deadline for implementing the system ended on March 27.
FICCI secretary general A Didar Singh said that since the interest of Indians working in Saudi and their dependents would be impacted the matter required immediate attention.
“As reported, currently, there are 3, 40,000 firms, which do not have any Saudi employee. If we take an average of 2 to 3 Saudi nationals to be employed by each firm following the Nitaqat Law, this may have the possibility of displacing some half to one million expatriates, if more jobs are not simultaneously created. A large numbers of Indian workers are employed in Saudi Arabia and according to data of 2011, this includes around 570,000 Keralites who account for a total remittance of Rs 55,000 crore. This shows the important role the NRI community plays in the state and the possible impact this change in law could have,’’ Singh said.