As you all know Saudi Arabia has recently launched a Nitaqat program to provide employment opportunities for Saudi citizens. The program will classify companies in red, yellow and green colours based on the ratio of Saudi and foreign employees in the company. Companies in red category will not renew the work permit of foreign employees while the yellow ones can only keep them for six years. The companies in the green category can only retain foreign employees as long as they wish. I am personally against the Nitaqat program and following are the six reasons why the nitaqat program should be eliminated:
- It reserves jobs for unqualified Saudi men
- It highlights the fact that Saudis and foreigners are not equal
- It is a violation of labor and employee rights
- It provides jobs to people based on factors which are irrelevant such as local citizenship
- It reduces productivity as Saudi employees are unproductive
- It will increase migration of skilled foreign employees to countries with better employee rights
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