Jakarta –
Companies in Saudi Arabia are making changes to their payroll strategies. Labor recruiters say that many companies are starting to reduce high salaries, especially for foreign workers.
So far, companies there have set high salaries in order to attract the best talent from around the world to work in sectors such as construction and manufacturing in Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom is now controlling spending and reorganizing economic priorities. Reporting from Reuters, Sunday (16/11/2025), Saudi Arabia is halfway to realizing the blueprint for economic transformation in 2030.
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They aim to reduce dependence on oil revenues, create jobs, and expand industries such as tourism, real estate, mining, and financial services.
As part of a long-term plan, the Kingdom began investing heavily in megaprojects worth billions of dollars. This may attract high-skilled foreign workers, but also make the private sector experience difficulties and implementation.
Foreign recruits can no longer expect to negotiate salaries of 40% or more as was common at the start of the decade.
“On the one hand, the largest economies in the region are rationalizing themselves, and on the other hand, there is a huge supply of candidates who are very open to coming to the region. So what is happening is that companies are rethinking their job packages. That has clearly happened,” said Magdy Al Zein, managing director at recruitment firm Boyden.
The changes reflect a broader shift by Saudi Arabia’s US$925 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is seeing a significant impact on its infrastructure and real estate megaprojects to sectors such as AI, logistics and mining, which are seen as offering better returns.
Examples include NEOM, a planned US$500 billion futuristic city in the middle of the desert, and the mountain tourism hub of Trojena, host of the 2029 Asian Winter Games.
Saudi Arabia is recruiting heavily for the megaproject, targeting international talent with skills that are scarce in the local workforce. Fantastic salaries are offered when the project opens, for example a project manager can get an offer of around US$ 100,000. Even though the salary for the same position is only US$ 60,000 in the United Arab Emirates.
NEOM and other PIF-backed ventures now face delays as the kingdom rationalizes. Project activity in Saudi remained sluggish in 2025, with salary offers nearly halving in the first nine months.
Lower oil prices have also weighed on public finances, widening the fiscal deficit, even as Saudi Arabia has curbed crude production to support oil markets.
(hal/kil)
