Further relaxing the Nitaqat rules, the Saudi Government has permitted the companies and businesses, which have been labelled ‘red’ because of their failure to comply with the rules, to go ‘green’ by employing Saudi nationals.
The ‘red category’ companies can do so by taking in the required number of Saudis in accordance with the size of their work force. But this has to be done by November 3, the second amnesty deadline set by the Saudi King for enforcing the Nitaqat.
The migration from ‘red’ to ‘green’ was not allowed in the first amnesty period – the three-month extension which expired on July 3, which has now been extended by four months.
The Nitaqat Saudization drive categorised the firms in the kingdom into four on the basis of the number of local people employed by them. For instance, those companies which employed up to 49 are required to have at least six Saudi employees among them and those falling below this were categorised as red. Those firms with up to 9 workers were required to employ at least one Saudi to escape from the red category.
Those firms that have fallen into the red category can now scale their status up by hiring the required number of Saudis. During the first amnesty period, this was not possible. The majority of Indian businesses are tiny and small and are hard put to comply the Saudization norms.
During the first amnesty, 34 lakh foreign workers had corrected their work and residency status and the authorities are hoping that the huge majorities the rest could do so during the four-month second amnesty.