Saudis In Search Of Their Lost Work Ethic

[Valin]

Strategy Page:

May 4, 2016:

 

Mohammed bin Salman Abdulaziz Al Saud, the 30 year old son of the current king of Saudi Arabia, is seen as one of the brightest (he has a degree in law) of the top Saudi royals. He’s currently the deputy crown prince and, since January 2016, the youngest Minister of Defense ever. Mohammed bin Salman is ambitious and has proved himself capable to handling the Saudi bureaucracy. For the last two years he has been working on a plan to move Saudi Arabia away from dependence on oil income. In April 2016 he announced that his plan has been accepted and he will implement it.

 

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Mohammed bin Salman wants Saudis to work and manage this new non-oil economy. He faces formidable challenges. The official Saudi Arabian unemployment rate is 5.5 percent but the real rate is believed at least twice that. This is many men have “no show” jobs or are unemployed by choice. Saudi men tend to have a very high opinion of themselves, and most jobs available, even to poorly educated young men, do not satisfy. Thus most Saudi prefer a government job where the work is easy, the pay is good, the title is flattering and life is boring. In the non-government sector of the economy, 90 percent of the Saudi jobs are handled by foreigners. These foreigners comprise 27 percent of the Saudi population, mostly to staff all the non-government jobs Saudi men disdain. This means most young Saudi men have few challenges. Past efforts to replace foreign workers with Saudis have failed in practice although were often declared a success because many foreigners were officially replaced with Saudis who were often so ineffective that companies had to find ways to hire foreigners to actually get the work done while Saudis were still on the payroll.

 

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The UAE has been encouraging local companies to develop weapons for use by local forces and export markets. So far this has resulted in UAE firms manufacturing military trucks, guided missiles, and small arms. Despite this since 2008 UAE has become the third largest importer of weapons in the world and the largest in the Middle East. The other two big spenders worldwide are India and China. In the Middle East the UAE imports 50 percent more weapons than Israel.

 

Note that the UAE makes this work by doing most of the manufacturing in foreign countries, usually other Arab states that have little or no oil income and a better work ethic. Mohammed bin Salman is going right to the heart of the issue in an effort to see if Saudis can support themselves without the economic crutch oil has provided for the last two generations.