Category Archives: Industry News

The Saudization Plan of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been one of the top news lately. And it’s been making our current OFWs and those planning to work abroad worried.

There was a recent rumor that the passports of those vacationing in the Philippines were stamped with “Exit Only”. The Philippines’ DFA and Saudi officials have already denied this.

I hope people stop spreading rumors like this because negative news like this can also hurt us locally. We all know that our current economy relies heavily on the dollars earned by Filipinos abroad. Our real estate industry and our consumer industry relies so much on the OFWs. If these industries are hit people are going to lose jobs here.

So What is the Saudi Nationalization Plan and How will it affect our OFWs and those would be OFWs?

The Saudi Nationalization plan is a project by the Saudi Officials to urge their local companies to hire more Saudi Citizens.

This move was brought about by their increase in population as well as their local unemployment rate.

How does it work?

The plan is for Saudi companies to have 30% local citizens as employees. Which means they are still allowed to have 70% of their workforce to be expats or foreigners (Filipinos). What are the penalties for companies who do not comply?

Companies will be classified as Excellent, Green, Yellow, and Red.

1. The state will impose a six year cap on the residency visa of the expats if their company fails two comply. 2. Those who fall in the “Red” category will not be allowed to renew the working visa of their expat employees. 3. Those in “Excellent”, “Green”, and “Yellow” categories will be allowed to take away or pirate the expat workers of companies in the “Red” category even without the permission of the “Red” companies.

Saudi’s Local Workforce and How they will affect the OFWs

Currently 27 percent of Saudis under 30 are without work and 39 percent of Saudis between the age of 20-24 are without work.

That is why they really need this plan.

But their problem however is that expat from South and Southeast Asia demand lower salaries and are highly skilled compared to many of the local graduates.

That is why the state also has a move to improve their local education system.

Summary

To summarize:

1. They are still going to hire atleast 70% foreign workers in each of their private companies. 2. Their local people will still need to catch up with the more highly skilled foreign workers (including Filipinos). It will probably take them 5 to 10 years?

I hope this clears everything about the Saudization plan which is worrying a lot of people these days.

Reference: http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093421544

TESDA will soon offer Technical Vocational Training using the Internet. This move could be useful to Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who want to improve their existing skills or acquire a new one.

Using the Internet OFWs will have access to online videos, electronic references, and online conferences with teachers.

It is good to know that the government is finally making moves to make education available nationwide and to anywhere in the world.

Reference: http://www.tesda.gov.ph/page.aspx?page_id=296

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Smart Communications, Inc. has made available a 24 hour “Libreng Tawag” for families of Overseas Filipino Workers in Libya.

The free calls started Feb. 25. You can visit the south wing of the DFA Main building in Pasay City.

If you are not from Metro Manila, you can call the following numbers to get information about your relatives in Libya.

Telephone Nos.: 834-4580, 834-3245, 834-3240, and 834-4646

The Philippines Vice President Binay is supporting the call for the creation of an OFW Bank. The primary purpose of the bank is to help Filipino workers abroad save more money on the remittances they send home by charging less than existing commercial banks.

Currently, there have been complaints about commercial banks charging expensive remittance fee.

The government has seen this proposal advantageous as the OFW remittance grew by 7.9 percent in 2010 and is expected to grow by 8 percent this year.

The bulk of remittances came from the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the UK, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Italy, Germany and Norway.