Philippines says Saudi Arabia still needs its workers
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia will still need even more Filipino workers despite its ‘Saudization’ policy, Manila’s labour secretary said Wednesday following a meeting between Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Saudi King Salman.
To show Filipinos that they are still welcome, the Saudis are even willing to allow more than 100 ‘runaway’ Filipino workers to return home, Secretary Silvestre Bello told reporters in Riyadh.
He said Saudi officials told him they still need Filipinos who work in the Gulf kingdom in fields ranging from construction, domestic work, healthcare, retail, engineering, telecommunications, transportation and the oil industry.
“They explained the kind of growth they are having in Saudi Arabia. They would need more workers in the coming years,” Bello said.
They explained the kind of growth they are having in Saudi Arabia. They would need more workers in the coming years. Silvestre Bello, Secretary
“It came from their side that Filipino workers are good workers. They recognise that they were instrumental in the growth of Saudi Arabia in the past years,” he said.
Asked how this would affect the policy of ‘ Saudization,’ or giving jobs to Saudis, Bello said: “Saudization is sort of just a concept now.”
“The most preferred overseas worker is the Filipino,” he quoted Saudi officials as saying.
Under a wide-ranging economic reform plan released last year in the face of collapsed oil revenues, Saudi Arabia wants unemployment among its citizens to fall to nine percent by 2020, against 11.6 percent last year.
Latest official figures showed almost nine million foreigners employed in the kingdom but that was before the worst of the economic pain struck, sending many expats homes.
Thousands of Filipinos and other Asian labourers, particularly in the construction sector, have left Saudi Arabia with wages still unpaid.
Saudi Arabia is the secondlargest employer of Philippine overseas workers with 760,000 Filipinos in that Middle Eastern nation, Manila has said.
It was widely expected that demand for such workers would fall due to the Saudization policy and dropping global oil prices since 2014. — AFP