Saudi Prince wants to prune expat workforce

Gulf and Arab countries, where foreigners make up half the work force, should give preference to their own citizens over expatriates, a prominent member of the Saudi Royal family said.
“We should build our national economies to benefit our own people and not the millions of foreign workers,” Prince Turki al-Faisal Bin Abdullah said at a conference on human resources in Abu Dhabi.

Foreign unskilled and skilled workers, mainly from South East Asia and South Asia, make up an average of 50 per cent of the work force in the Gulf region.
This reaches as high as 92 per cent in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, and up to 60 per cent in Saudi Arabia.
Turki warned that allowing foreign workers could threaten the demographic makeup of the region. If this influx continues, we may become minorities in our own countries, the Prince added.

The warning sounded by the influential Saudi Prince came as two of the richest Arab countries, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, began to be affected by the global meltdown. Oil prices have currently touched their lowest from a peak of $147 a barrel in July 2008.

Most of the Gulf states have recently put a hold on large construction projects, which have forced many expatriate workers to leave the countries after losing their jobs.