INTRO: Beheadings, corruption, dictators,
assassinations, human rights violations, and discrimation. This is often the visual that is
painted about Saudi Arabia by the western media. While it may seem hard to believe,
many of these characteristics are indeed accurate when it comes to Saudi Arabia, but like with
most things in life, there’s another side to the story. For many, Saudi Arabia represents culture,
history, values, and most importantly opportunity. I know that for many of us,
these positive attributes don’t even come close to making up for the negative attributes.
However, there’s millions of people who don’t quite agree. In fact, Saudi Arabia is home to
the third largest immigrant population in the world coming in at 13.5 million people.
Only the US and Germany have a higher immigrant population. Not only does Saudi Arabia have a
large number of immigrants, but they also have one of the highest immigrants to population ratios
as well. Saudi Arabia’s total population current stands at just under 35 million people
which means that 38.65% of the population is immigrants. For perspective, immigrants in America
only make up 15.28% of the US population. So, here’s the untold story of how Saudi Arabia
become one of the largest immigration hubs in the world despite their horrendous reputation.
HARD LABOR: Starting with the most
obvious factor, we have jobs. Most people know that Saudi Arabia is filthy rich off of oil,
but they don’t exactly understand the magnitude, so here’s some numbers to put it in perspective.
The biggest company in Saudi Arabia is oil giant called Saudi Aramco that’s mostly
owned by the Saudi government. Contrary to popular belief, Saudi Aramco was actually the
first company in the world to reach a $2 trillion valuation. In other words, it wasn’t Apple. Also,
if you think that companies like Apple and Google make too much money, just take a look at this.
Thanks to elevated oil prices, in the past 12 months, Saudi Aramco boasted earnings of nearly
a quarter trillion dollars. That’s literally $34 billion more than Apple and Google combined. Also,
we should note that Saudi Aramco’s investors don’t get to keep most of this money like Apple and
Google. Saudi Aramco has to hand over roughly half of their profits straight to the Saudi government.
With such numbers, it’s no wonder why the Saudi government is so rich. But, while these
numbers are super glamorous, the same cannot be said about the lives of Saudi immigrants.
The vast majority of Saudi immigrants are from third world countries that are there to
do hard labor. This includes countries like Egypt, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Yemen,
and Syria. Now, this might be a bit confusing. Why take all this risk and immigrate to arguably one
of the scariest countries in the world just to be paid minimum wage? Well, the reality
is that these immigrants' lives in their home countries are simply far
worse. Most of them were usually jobless and couldn’t even afford to carry on daily life.
So, Saudi Arabia’s relatively low laborer salaries actually seem pretty appealing to many of them.
Technically, Saudi Arabia does have a minimum wage of 4000 riyals per month or roughly $1000,
but this only applies to Saudi citizens, and immigrants are usually paid less. The average
laborer in Saudi Arabia is paid 36,000 riyals per year or just under $10,000. Something to note,
however, is that companies usually takecare of housing, food, and other common living expenses.
So, it’s actually quite possible to save over 90% of your salary on an annual basis. Also,
most immigrants don’t stay here for several years or decades. They usually come on 3 to 5 year
contracts, save up $25 to $35,000, and head back home where they now have a small fortune. Take
India, for example, where 30,000 American dollars is equivalent to roughly 2.4 million rupees.
This amount of money is basically impossible to achieve as a hard laborer in India. In fact,
this is not a small sum of money even for white collar workers in India like software engineers.
The average software engineer in India earns 600,000 rupees per year. So, it would take
4 years just to earn 2.4 million rupees itself as a software engineer. If we assume that these
engineers could save about 20% of their income, it would take them 20 years to build up $2.4 million.
Now of course, it’s not like these guys will be stuck at 600,000 rupees per year for 20 years,
but I think you get the point. For poor individuals from such countries,
taking on a laborer job in Saudi Arabia is actually super lucrative. But, this money
definitely doesn’t come easy as laborers in Saudi Arabia are often subject to loads of atrocities.
ATROCITIES:
Starting off with the lighter end of atrocities, we have overworking.
As a hard laborer, it’s extremely unlikely that you’re only going to be working 8 hours per day.
More times than not, you’ll be working ten to twelve hours for atleast 6 days a week. For
certain industries like the restaurant industry, these numbers even go up to 16 hours per day. Now,
Saudi Arabia does technically have rules that are supposed to prevent this from happneing.
For example, working hours aren’t supposed to exceed 60 hours per week and there are
limits to overtime as well. But, if we’re being honest, it’s not like hard laboreres are gonna
go and report their employers. For them, they can’t risk losing their jobs or worse
their freedom. You see, employers often confiscate the passports of laboreres as soon as they arrive.
And the passports aren’t returned until the term is over. This ensures that these workers won't
try to runaway or report their employers before their term is over. This too is illegal according
to Saudi law, but that doesn’t mean that it’s uncommon. Something else that’s pretty common is
discrimation. Race and gender based discrimination is rather common, but just being a laborer itself
is usually enough to receive poor treatment. While none of this is optimal, if you keep your head
down and just do what you’re asked to, you should be able to complete your term without any issues.
But, for some laborers, things take a turn for the worst. You see, the criminal justice system in
Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly fair, so if an employer reports an laborer for some sort of crime,
the laborer is basically screwed. Let’s just say Saudi Arabia has some questionable ways of getting
confessions, and they usually have severe punishments for even the smallest offenses.
The ones that are lucky are able to get away with a couple years in jail and a few hundred lashes,
but the ones that aren’t so lucky, well they’re not so lucky. So, it’s best that you stay on the
good side of your employer regardless of how big of a douchebag they really are. Given that
Saudi Arabia is trying to open up to western tourists and basically become another Dubai,
they have put more effort into fixing these injustices over the past few years. For example,
they’ve added stipulations that allow laborers to switch jobs without their employer’s consent.
Similarly, laborers no longer need approval from their employers to leave or reenter the country.
While these are definitely good steps in the right direction, if laborers don’t take
advantage of these opportunities, it doesn’t really mean anything. Also, just because it’s
getting better in certain areas doesn’t mean that it’s getting better in all areas. For example,
within the first 9 months of 2021, 41 Kenyans died in mysterious circumstances, and there were over a
1000 laborers in distress. Hearing all this, you probably think that only the most desperate end
up making their way to Saudi Arabia and that’s true for basically all laborers in the country.
But, there is a small portion of immigrants that come there purely out of free will,
and here’s why. FREE WILL IMMIGRANTS:
While conditions aren’t that great for hard laborers, the same cannot be said about educated
immigrants like engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers, scientists, and so on. These skills
are highly valued virtually everywhere and it’s no different in Saudi Arabia. In fact, 85% of
engineers in Saudi Arabia are expats, so clearly, Saudi Arabia is quite appealing for white collar
workers as well. Now, it’s not like engineers from western countries are fighting tooth and nail to
try to get into Saudi Arabia. But, the same cannot be said about engineers from developing countries.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t pay insane salaries like FAANG or something, but they do have white
collar salaries that are basically on par with most western countries. Take petroleum engineers
for example. The average petroleum engineer at Saudi Aramco earns $109,000 per year. Meanwhile,
the average petroleum engineer in India earns 811,000 rupees or just about $10,000. Even a top
petroleum engineer in India only earns 4 million rupees or about $50,000. So, when these engineers
are offered a salary that's 2 to 10 times more than their salaries in India, it’s no wonder why
they take the deal. Also, something else that we should note is that there is no personal income
tax in Saudi Arabia. For Saudi Arabia, it simply makes more sense to tax a couple of gas companies
another 2% than try to tax millions of residents 20 or 30%. With that being said, a $110,000 salary
in Saudi Arabia is actually equivalent to about a $150,000 in America. It’s not just engineers and
doctors that are attracted to Saudi Arabia either. They’re also able to attract a bunch of managers,
directors, executives, and business leaders. For example, 18% of CEOs at Saudi companies are
actually foreigners. In terms of the living conditions for these white collar workers,
they’re obviously way better than hard laborers. They usually don’t have to worry about employers
confiscating their passports or having to work 80 plus hours a week. According to most accounts,
it seems that life for these workers is very similar to how life would’ve been if they were
in a western country with the same job. There are of course a few local differences. For example,
you have regular prayer breaks and you’re not going to be drinking wine or eating pork,
but for the most part, things aren’t all that different. You shouldn’t mistake these
similarities for complete freedom though. If you break a law, you’re still gonna have a far
worse experience than in any western country. But you know, that’s just part of the deal. If there
weren’t any added risks, Saudi Arabia obviously wouldn’t have to pay as much. So, professional
expats don’t tend to stay here for decades either, but they do tend to stay for longer than laborers.
THE STATE OF SAUDI IMMIGRATION:
In the end, the large number of immigrants in Saudi Arabia just comes down to one thing
and that’s jobs. Having world’s largest oil reserves, it’s only natural that the country
has plenty of opportunities across the board. For a lot of westerners, these opportunities often
don’t seem to be worth it given the associated risks of living in the country and the ethical
conerns of supporting the country. But, for a lot of individuals from developing countries,
they don’t have the luxury to make such a choice. Going to Saudi Arabia and grinding out a few years
of hard labor is oftentimes the most straight forward way to escape poverty. Now of course,
the same cannot be said about the white collar workers. While they may be able to earn a lot
more in Saudi Arabia, it’s not like they would’ve starved in their home countries either. So, they
did have the luxury of making the choice, and they chose Saudi Arabia. I know this will probably come
of as greedy, unethical, and immoral to many of you. But, everybody’s experiences and perspectives
are different, and you can’t really understand their situation or reasoning without having
lived their lives. But, that’s just what I think. Would you be willing to work in Saudi Arabia for
$200,000 per year? Comment that down below. Also, drop a like if you hope that labor conditions get
better in Saudi Arabia. And of course, consider checking out our discord community to suggest
future video ideas and consider subscribing to see more questions logically answered.