- The Kingdom intends to gradually cancel labor visas issued under the previous system
- Says it will prioritize certain occupational categories
ISLAMABAD: Saudi Arabia will introduce a new foreign manpower program starting next month by issuing visas for specific occupations, said Nayef Al-Omair, head of the vocational examination program at the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, in Riyadh on Tuesday.
Al-Omair noted that the ministry was categorizing the tasks and the structure of some professions for visa-issuing purposes. He also noted that the previous labor category system would be gradually be removed from the ministry’s system.
The new scheme will be optional for one year starting December 2019 after which it will become compulsory.
According to Al-Omair, the new program will be first applied to the manpower recruited from India due to it is a large size in the Saudi market.
However, it will cover seven countries, including India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, since workers belonging to these states constitute 95 percent of the professional manpower in the Kingdom’s local market.