Saudi Arabia extends amnesty deadline for illegal expat workers
Foreigners who do a different job to the one listed on their residence permit will now have until the end of the Islamic year on Nov 3 to resolve their status, Saudi official media reported on Tuesday citing an Interior Ministry statement.
Expatriates account for around a third of the population in the world’s top oil exporter and for decades the authorities have turned a blind eye to visa irregularities to give Saudi companies a ready stream of cheap imported labour.
That has led to the emergence of a labour black market, which the government says makes it harder for Saudis to get jobs in a country with an official 12 per cent unemployment rate, and which economists say fosters inefficiencies.
Remittances from workers in Saudi Arabia are an important source of revenue in Yemen, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines and Yemen.
Earlier this year the kingdom began to crack down on the many foreign workers who have violated their visa terms with surprise inspections on streets and in company offices. Tens of thousands of people were deported or decided to leave the country under this pressure, raising concern about possible damage to the economy if deportations continued.
The government then announced an amnesty during which workers would be forgiven any fees or fines for visa violations such as overstaying or switching jobs, but bureaucratic delays mean many have still not regularised their status.
“They might have deported me. This is the situation for so many of us.
I was very worried. We didn’t know what would happen on Wednesday (when the deadline expired),” said a Pakistani working as a receptionist for a company in Riyadh.
