Number of Indian workers increasing in Saudi

A large number of Indians go to Saudi Arabia in search of work. The number of Indians in Saudi is increasing with time. The number of Indian workers in the country increased by 2 lakh during 2023-24, while the number of Indian companies registered in this West Asian country reached 3,000.

The number of workers increased by about 10% in the last financial year. With this, the number of Indian community in Saudi Arabia has reached 26.5 lakh, which is one of the largest population of expatriates in West Asia.

What was the number in 2022

The number of Indian workers going to work in Saudi Arabia has been recorded at 2 lakh in 2023-24. At the same time, in 2022 this number had increased 5 times. Also, in the year 2022, Saudi will become the country recruiting the most Indian workers among the Gulf countries. In 2022, 1,78,630 Indians were working in Saudi.

However, this number was only 32,845 in 2021 and 44,316 in 2020. The second country among the Gulf countries to recruit the highest number of Indian workers is Kuwait, where there was a 7 times increase in recruitment as compared to 2021.

Number increasing in Gulf countries

According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), about 50% of India’s expatriate population works in Gulf countries. An estimated 70% of the Indian population in this sector is made up of semi-skilled and unskilled workers, with 20-30% of Indians being professional and white-collar workers (such as doctors, engineers, architects, chartered accountants and bankers).

The number of Indian companies registered in Saudi Arabia has increased from 400 in 2019 to about 3,000 by August 2023, with a total investment of about $3 billion. These investments have been made in sectors such as management and consultancy services, financial services, construction projects, telecommunications, IT and pharmaceuticals.

Why is Saudi giving jobs?

Actually, the Saudi government is working under Vision 2030. The objective of this vision is to reduce the country’s dependence on oil and strengthen its economic-cultural and income sources. Due to this, its focus is on providing employment to more professionals, especially foreign employees.

India is currently Saudi Arabia’s second largest trading partner and plays an important role in the country’s food security, with rice exports alone worth about $1 billion.