FILE PHOTO: Reuters
A Saudi company has issued a report, which shows that a large number of expatriate workers have left the Kingdom permanently during the last two years.
According to the statistics released by Jadwa Investment, around 1.6 million foreign workers left Saudi Arabia in the past two years.
"The reason for the departure of foreign workers is due to expat labour fees and expat dependent fees introduced in January 2018 and July 2017 respectively,” the company said in its report.
The report said that "while all economic sectors witnessed a decline in the number of foreign workers in 2018, construction sector saw the highest attrition with about 910,000 workers leaving. The trade sector, which includes wholesale and retail, saw 340,000 expatriates leaving."
Announced in 2016 as part of a drive to increase non-oil government revenue - a key goal of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic transformation plan - the fees have been unpopular with business owners.
Partly as a result, hundreds of thousands of foreigners have left the kingdom, hitting the already-struggling economy but failing to make much of a dent in Saudi unemployment, Bloomberg had reported earlier.
Two types of so-called expat fees are currently in force. The first, charged for each familial dependent of a foreign worker, was implemented in July 2017.
It started at 100 riyals ($27) a month per dependent and is scheduled to increase by 100 riyals each year. The second kind of fee was introduced in January and is borne by businesses that employ foreigners, partly to encourage them to hire Saudis.
As per the Bloomberg report, after the charges came into effect, many foreigners decided to send their families home or left altogether. That’s affected a wide range of the businesses that served them, from restaurants to telecommunication companies.
Meanwhile, despite the departures, Saudi unemployment has inched up to 12.9 percent, its highest level in more than a decade.
