The Ministry of Labor has recently put the number of Saudis working in the private sector at 1.3 million up until the end of Hijri year 1434 (November 2013). The ministry said 724,000 Saudis have been employed in the private sector since the Nitaqat program was enforced in mid-2011. Undoubtedly, these are unprecedented figures for the Saudi workforce in the private sector. However, before we rush to praise them, we should put them under a microscope and analyze them. Only then can we make an accurate judgment. It is not necessarily true that such figures reflect a positive trend in the employment of Saudis. The ministry's latest statistics are based on two factors: 1. The ministry compared the actual difference between the number of Saudi workers employed in the private sector at the end of 2010 and of 2013. In 2010, it was 724,000 while in 2013 it was 1.3 million. Obviously, the difference is around 580,000. However, the ministry, in its aforementioned statement, said the difference was around 724,000. Who are these extra 144,000 workers? What is the best explanation for this figure? We can say that this figure (144,000) accounts for workers who have died, retired, resigned, or been fired from their jobs. However, it is still not clear what happened to those workers. The statistics of the General Organization of Social Insurance (GOSI) puts the total number of deceased and retired Saudi workers between 2011-2013 at around 81,000. This means about 63,000 workers resigned or were fired. However, we don't know if they are included in the figure 724,000. Only the Ministry of Labor knows. Let's just assume that they were included among the 724,000. Nevertheless, the increase in the number of workers (580,000) is a positive thing. 2. I have mentioned in my previous articles that the number of Saudis in the private sector increased in 2011 and 2012 by 410,000. If we add to this the actual increase in 2013, which is 170,000, we get the total number which is 580,000. However, these figures did not sit well with Shoura Council member Sulaiman Al-Hameed. During the session which discussed GOSI's annual report, Al-Hameed said that a part of these figures reflect fake Saudization and the Ministry of Labor should be held responsible for it. Al-Hameed compared the ministry's 2012 statistics report with that of previous years. He concluded that 74 percent of the increase in the number of Saudi workers could be accounted for by fake Saudization. He drew attention to the fact that 42 percent of construction and contracting businesses hired more female workers in 2012 while the average salary for Saudi workers in the sector decreased by 14 percent for the same year. The question that this poses is: Did the same thing happen in 2013? Did fake Saudization contribute to creating 170,000 fake jobs? Apparently, this is what happened. In a recent statement by the Ministry of Labor, the undersecretary for inspection and development of the work environment Dr. Abdullah Abo Ethnain said that 90 percent of the violations discovered during the crackdown campaign on violators of residency regulations were for fake Saudization. This means that more than 125,000 jobs created in 2013 were fake, bringing the total number of fake jobs between 2011-2013 to 429,000.
