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Capitalism is the best tool to change a society for the better. Seems that the Saudi oil wealth created a sort of Socialism in Saudi Arabia. Good piece and further proof that Capitalism will do more to change that region for the better than war (although war needs to be used as a calayst at times).
Besides, idle hands tend to lead to problems.
PAGE ONE
Saudis Try New Way
C
Going to Work
Vast Oil Wealth Can't Keep Up
With Population Growth;
The Mosque in the Mine
By HUGH POPE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 1, 2004; Page A1
MAHD AL-DHAHAB, Saudi Arabia -- Obeidullah Abdullah works in a gold mine deep in the Saudi Arabian desert, overseeing crushers and bubbling vats that process ore. It's noisy, dirty and dangerous work, but he's happy just to have a job.
The 38-year-old Mr. Abdullah is part of a revolutionary development in the Kingdom: Saudis taking up work.
In the three decades since an oil boom showered wealth on the Arabian Peninsula, many Saudi citizens lost their taste for work. They collected paychecks from no-work government jobs, enjoyed long, state-funded studies abroad and were given lucrative sinecures at private companies. Meanwhile, legions of foreign workers were shipped in to man the kingdom's real economy and to service the needs of Saudis. More than nine of 10 jobs in the Saudi private sector are held by foreign workers: Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos, Turks -- and about 20,000 Americans.
But, now, the rapid growth of the Saudi population -- it has doubled, to 16 million, in the past quarter century -- has brought a dose of economic reality. Even Saudi Arabia's world-topping oil revenue hasn't kept pace. Two decades ago, Saudi per capita income matched that of the U.S. Now it has shrunk to one-fifth of the U.S. level.
Foreign workers still number five million. But now Saudis want, and are beginning to compete for, some of their jobs. They are driving taxis, manning supermarket checkouts, staffing reception desks and even squeezing into bellhop uniforms -- jobs Saudis considered beneath them just a few years ago.
"I'm proud to be working, and people respect me more," said Ahmed Hakim, 28, a flight attendant on Saudi Arabian Airlines, whose male cabin staffs are now exclusively Saudi. "Saudis used to think that even a pilot was something lowly, like a chauffeur, and wouldn't let their daughters marry one. Now they're happy for their daughters to marry a flight attendant like me."
Indeed, many observers say no issue is more important than jobs for the future stability of Saudi Arabia, the Arab world's biggest economy and the largest supplier of crude oil to the U.S. Official statistics show unemployment running at 35% among Saudi men age 20 to 24.
A demographic tidal wave will soon make that worse. In the 2000 census, 56% of the Saudi population was under the age of 20. And frustration among idle youths has fueled not only a surge of car theft and joy-riding, but also Islamist extremism. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks on America were young Saudis.
To spur the economy, the government is encouraging foreign investment and has reduced corporate taxes and customs duties. And to assure that it is Saudis who gain, the monarchy has recommitted itself to a "Saudization" program to replace foreign workers with Saudis. This year, the government listed 25 categories of jobs to be reserved for Saudis. Enforcement raids began this month with grocery stores and then gold shops. Stores selling clothes, toys, spare parts for cars and mobile phones are next on the list.
The Cradle of Gold mine, where Mr. Abdullah oversees the ore-processing plant, is one of the first, fitful government experiments in putting Saudis to work. When production began in 1986, less than 3% of the workers were Saudi. Now the 270-man work force is half Saudi.
In the beginning, the few Saudi workers employed in the mine were security guards. The handful of well-paid Saudi managers at the mine were resented. They contributed little or nothing to the operation of the mine and rarely left their offices. Like all Saudi workers in the kingdom, they enjoyed a two-day weekend while foreign workers all put in six-day weeks.
Sameer Naseer, a Saudi geologist who ran the mine from 1989 to 1997, set out to prove that Saudis could be more than placeholders rubber-stamping the decisions of foreign executives. But his plans ran into immediate opposition from ministry bureaucrats who didn't believe Saudis were up to real work.
Mr. Naseer, 50, started by demanding that six Saudi laborers be hired as mine workers in 1990. The British mine captain flatly refused, saying they would be unsafe and waste time. "The Saudis were pretty hopeless underground," says Graham Oram, 62, a Briton who was the mine's chief geologist between 1984 and 1991. Saudi miners would walk to the surface to pray up to five times a day, a practice that continued until 1992 when management built a cave-like mosque in the depths of the mine.
Mr. Naseer organized a competition that pitted his candidate Saudi miners against experienced Filipinos. "Before they started, I gave them a talk like a football trainer," Mr. Naseer says. "I said: 'Look, you guys, whose land is this?' They said, 'Our tribe's.' I said: 'You know what the foreigners say? That you're good for nothing, just grazing sheep. Are you with me to prove them wrong?' "
Stopwatch in hand, Mr. Naseer and the British mine captain measured how quickly the Filipinos and Saudis could truck the glittering ore to the surface through miles of winding tunnels. "We were going up to each other when we changed our clothes, encouraging each other," says Mishan al-Mutairi, an illiterate farmer born in a goat-hair tent who was one of the first group. Three of the Saudis equaled the best Filipino time, and two of them beat it.
Training Bedouin herdsmen to be miners was simple compared with the years needed to turn Saudi college graduates into experienced mine managers. Accustomed to an easy life, they at first refused to do any on-the-job training down in the mine. Mr. Naseer couldn't force them to, either. Some young engineers had already walked out in the early 1990s, considering the desert assignment worse than military service and certain that their fathers would look after them if they found no other job. Mr. Naseer shamed the young engineers into action by declaring that their academic studies were useless unless they knew firsthand how mining was done.
A big change came at the end of 2002, when the last of the top foreign managers, Piet Ferreira, left the gold production mill to Mr. Abdullah's care.
Though long in coming, the benefits from an increasingly Saudi staff extend beyond the mine to the town of Mahd al-Dhahab. While foreign workers remit cash abroad, Saudis spend it locally. Mahd al-Dhahab, just two streets and a few houses 15 years ago, has grown into a town of 5,000 people as business has boomed. Even the gypsy entertainers on the edge of town have built neat concrete houses to replace their old tin shacks.
Capitalism is the best tool to change a society for the better. Seems that the Saudi oil wealth created a sort of Socialism in Saudi Arabia. Good piece and further proof that Capitalism will do more to change that region for the better than war (although war needs to be used as a calayst at times).
Besides, idle hands tend to lead to problems.
PAGE ONE
Saudis Try New Way
C
Going to Work
Vast Oil Wealth Can't Keep Up
With Population Growth;
The Mosque in the Mine
By HUGH POPE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 1, 2004; Page A1
MAHD AL-DHAHAB, Saudi Arabia -- Obeidullah Abdullah works in a gold mine deep in the Saudi Arabian desert, overseeing crushers and bubbling vats that process ore. It's noisy, dirty and dangerous work, but he's happy just to have a job.
The 38-year-old Mr. Abdullah is part of a revolutionary development in the Kingdom: Saudis taking up work.
In the three decades since an oil boom showered wealth on the Arabian Peninsula, many Saudi citizens lost their taste for work. They collected paychecks from no-work government jobs, enjoyed long, state-funded studies abroad and were given lucrative sinecures at private companies. Meanwhile, legions of foreign workers were shipped in to man the kingdom's real economy and to service the needs of Saudis. More than nine of 10 jobs in the Saudi private sector are held by foreign workers: Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos, Turks -- and about 20,000 Americans.
But, now, the rapid growth of the Saudi population -- it has doubled, to 16 million, in the past quarter century -- has brought a dose of economic reality. Even Saudi Arabia's world-topping oil revenue hasn't kept pace. Two decades ago, Saudi per capita income matched that of the U.S. Now it has shrunk to one-fifth of the U.S. level.
Foreign workers still number five million. But now Saudis want, and are beginning to compete for, some of their jobs. They are driving taxis, manning supermarket checkouts, staffing reception desks and even squeezing into bellhop uniforms -- jobs Saudis considered beneath them just a few years ago.
"I'm proud to be working, and people respect me more," said Ahmed Hakim, 28, a flight attendant on Saudi Arabian Airlines, whose male cabin staffs are now exclusively Saudi. "Saudis used to think that even a pilot was something lowly, like a chauffeur, and wouldn't let their daughters marry one. Now they're happy for their daughters to marry a flight attendant like me."
Indeed, many observers say no issue is more important than jobs for the future stability of Saudi Arabia, the Arab world's biggest economy and the largest supplier of crude oil to the U.S. Official statistics show unemployment running at 35% among Saudi men age 20 to 24.
A demographic tidal wave will soon make that worse. In the 2000 census, 56% of the Saudi population was under the age of 20. And frustration among idle youths has fueled not only a surge of car theft and joy-riding, but also Islamist extremism. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks on America were young Saudis.
To spur the economy, the government is encouraging foreign investment and has reduced corporate taxes and customs duties. And to assure that it is Saudis who gain, the monarchy has recommitted itself to a "Saudization" program to replace foreign workers with Saudis. This year, the government listed 25 categories of jobs to be reserved for Saudis. Enforcement raids began this month with grocery stores and then gold shops. Stores selling clothes, toys, spare parts for cars and mobile phones are next on the list.
The Cradle of Gold mine, where Mr. Abdullah oversees the ore-processing plant, is one of the first, fitful government experiments in putting Saudis to work. When production began in 1986, less than 3% of the workers were Saudi. Now the 270-man work force is half Saudi.
In the beginning, the few Saudi workers employed in the mine were security guards. The handful of well-paid Saudi managers at the mine were resented. They contributed little or nothing to the operation of the mine and rarely left their offices. Like all Saudi workers in the kingdom, they enjoyed a two-day weekend while foreign workers all put in six-day weeks.
Sameer Naseer, a Saudi geologist who ran the mine from 1989 to 1997, set out to prove that Saudis could be more than placeholders rubber-stamping the decisions of foreign executives. But his plans ran into immediate opposition from ministry bureaucrats who didn't believe Saudis were up to real work.
Mr. Naseer, 50, started by demanding that six Saudi laborers be hired as mine workers in 1990. The British mine captain flatly refused, saying they would be unsafe and waste time. "The Saudis were pretty hopeless underground," says Graham Oram, 62, a Briton who was the mine's chief geologist between 1984 and 1991. Saudi miners would walk to the surface to pray up to five times a day, a practice that continued until 1992 when management built a cave-like mosque in the depths of the mine.
Mr. Naseer organized a competition that pitted his candidate Saudi miners against experienced Filipinos. "Before they started, I gave them a talk like a football trainer," Mr. Naseer says. "I said: 'Look, you guys, whose land is this?' They said, 'Our tribe's.' I said: 'You know what the foreigners say? That you're good for nothing, just grazing sheep. Are you with me to prove them wrong?' "
Stopwatch in hand, Mr. Naseer and the British mine captain measured how quickly the Filipinos and Saudis could truck the glittering ore to the surface through miles of winding tunnels. "We were going up to each other when we changed our clothes, encouraging each other," says Mishan al-Mutairi, an illiterate farmer born in a goat-hair tent who was one of the first group. Three of the Saudis equaled the best Filipino time, and two of them beat it.
Training Bedouin herdsmen to be miners was simple compared with the years needed to turn Saudi college graduates into experienced mine managers. Accustomed to an easy life, they at first refused to do any on-the-job training down in the mine. Mr. Naseer couldn't force them to, either. Some young engineers had already walked out in the early 1990s, considering the desert assignment worse than military service and certain that their fathers would look after them if they found no other job. Mr. Naseer shamed the young engineers into action by declaring that their academic studies were useless unless they knew firsthand how mining was done.
A big change came at the end of 2002, when the last of the top foreign managers, Piet Ferreira, left the gold production mill to Mr. Abdullah's care.
Though long in coming, the benefits from an increasingly Saudi staff extend beyond the mine to the town of Mahd al-Dhahab. While foreign workers remit cash abroad, Saudis spend it locally. Mahd al-Dhahab, just two streets and a few houses 15 years ago, has grown into a town of 5,000 people as business has boomed. Even the gypsy entertainers on the edge of town have built neat concrete houses to replace their old tin shacks.