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Comment by xbmcuser | Hacker News Reader

Imigration has already been controlled millions of people have already been sent back to their own countries. And further restrictions are being put up on which jobs will be open to foriegners. They can't sent everyone back in one go but by adding restrictions each year they are doing it gradually.

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> They can't sent everyone back in one go

The KSA is a wealthy absolute monarchy. They absolutely can.

They can't because not everyone local has the same expertise or training as the imported foreign workers. For example, in 2017, 40% of the university faculty members were not Saudi: http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/517198

Checks and balances are supposed to protect society against serious mistakes, and the two are so closely connected that we often confuse the checks and balances with the mistakes. A wealthy absolute monarchy doesn't have checks and balances, but mistakes have effects.

The king may have the right to send all the plumbers back to India and wherever they came from, effective on the coming Monday, but he doesn't have the ability to stop the pipes from being clogged.

Right, and a guy who was a prince/princess one day isn’t going to be unblocking toilets the next day...

They could do it. But there are limits to the practicality of what they can do. It would kill the local economy in an instant. All those foreign workers are at the core of the productive economy, doing actual work that matters, including much of the dirty and mundane stuff, as well as pretty much all of their construction work. I'm sure it's possible to replace them all if they so choose, but it can't be done in an instant. Dramatic and disruptive changes like that take time, or else there will be huge problems. Replacements will need training and experience. The economy as a whole will need to adjust to the population change, and there will be all sorts of other second- and third- order effects.

It's not just unskilled workers. They rely on many foreign skilled workers too. Two acquaintances of mine are expert concrete engineers. They go out there to work on these building mega projects like the Burj Khalifa, as well as ones in KSA. There is little local engineering expertise; it's all brought in. When you're mega rich, it's easy to do that. It would be better to develop their own expertise and industry and have a more balanced economy, as well as a more secular society that would value such careers, but that takes time as well as the desire to change their economy and society to permit it. It's not clear they have the desire or will to do so.

The old joke is that the foreign workers are the only ones who know how to fix the air conditioner.

Yep, and it's not too far off the mark. Without foreign workers, foreign products and services, where would they be? The country would be largely uninhabitable without western technology for building, desalination, transport, food imports etc. It's a hugely ironic contradiction that it is so critically dependent upon the developed and industrialised world while also simultaneously despising it and working against it in various ways.

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