• The number of expatriate workers increased by 21 percent over the last three years, rising from 1,275,053 in 2021 to 1,545,078 in 2023.

The Audit Bureau emphasized the importance of creating an integrated program and strategic plan to replace expatriate workers with national workers, ensuring this transition does not negatively impact economic activity, according to Al Rai newspaper.

This was among the 13 recommendations made by the bureau to the Public Authority for Manpower in its annual report on the Performance Control Department for the year 2023, which aims to enhance the performance of various government agencies and improve their work and quality systems.

It indicated that the authority administratively suspended 6,708 files for various reasons during the period 2021-2023. It noted that the number of expatriate workers increased by 21 percent over the last three years, rising from 1,275,053 in 2021 to 1,545,078 in 2023.

It also recommended that the authority establish a clear labor policy to determine the actual needs for specializations required from foreign workers and review the ministerial decisions and administrative circulars regulating the labor law, developing them in a way that serves all parties.

It stressed the need to “develop an integrated program and strategic plan to replace expatriate workers with national workers, without compromising the level of performance in economic activities in the country.”

The recommendations also include tightening the penalties for perpetrators of residency trafficking and referring their files to the judicial authorities, activating and implementing awareness programs for expatriate workers about their legal, material, and living rights and duties, completing the linkage with other government agencies whose work is connected to the authority, and coordinating with the Central Administration of Statistics to obtain data related to the Authority, which will enable it to cover the indicators of the eighth goal of the Sustainable Development Goals.