Jobs in Saudi Arabia Appeal to Foreigners Despite Laws
The current laws in Saudi Arabia make it difficult to acquire work visas and iqamas (official identity cards, needed to work any job in Saudi Arabia) for highly qualified positions. Despite the complexity for white collar jobs, it remains fairly easy to obtain a work visa and iqama for laboring jobs in Saudi Arabia. According to Arab News, this is causing many foreigners to write low-level jobs on their visas just to gain access to the job market. Workers, including college graduates from Morocco, Egypt, Syria and other countries have declared laboring jobs on their visas only to get jobs as teachers, businessmen and even CEOs of private companies in Saudi Arabia. This is not only common for the men but foreign women also declare jobs as maids so they can find jobs in schools as teachers or in beauty salons.
The official Labor Office statistics state that about 30% of the seven million works are laborers and almost 6% are maids. New statistics show an increase in labor visas by more than 115% in the last year. I wonder how many of those visas actually belong to laborers.
Brandie Gordon
