The number of expatriates living in the Kingdom reached 10 million by the end of 2008, an increase of 14 percent from the previous year. Expatriates now represent 27 percent of the country's population. Abdul Wahid Al-Humaid, Deputy Minister of Labor, giving the figures at a meeting to discuss Saudization at Riyadh's Literary Club Sunday, said that the number of domestic workers of both sexes had increased by 23 percent over a year to a 1.2 million. Expatriate remittances abroad, Al-Humaid said, were recorded at SR60 billion in 2007. Between 1993 and 2002 expatriates remitted SR585.4 billion ($156.1 billion), averaging roughly SR60 billion ($15 billion) a year. The estimated gross domestic product reported for Saudi Arabia in 2003 was $287.8 billion. Al-Humaid noted that the unemployment rate in the Kingdom had risen to 10 percent, with unemployed Saudis now amounting to 416,000, 26 percent of whom were women. In 2003 the Saudi Manpower Council mandated that the number of foreign workers and their families should not exceed 20 percent of the total population by 2013, and that the number of persons from any single nationality should not exceed 10 percent of the total expat population. But only five percent total Saudiization could be achieved between 1998 and 2003. A ban was also imposed on hiring foreign workers in some categories.
