Saudi Arabia to replace expatriate workers with locals

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia has plans to improve competence of local workers to replace the eight million expatriate workers in the country, Xinhua reported on Saturday.

The government plans to offer training and higher salaries to attract locals to get jobs, especially the blue-collar ones, reported local daily Okaz citing a labour ministry source.

"Those jobs could be taken by locals with higher salaries if they ignored social misconceptions about blue-collar workers," he said.

The main challenge to replace foreigner workers with Saudis lies in the construction sector, he said.