Nearly 240,000 expats have legalised their work status in Saudi Arabia since the Gulf kingdom announced its amnesty for illegal workers, officials have said.
Workers have corrected their status by transferring their sponsorship to companies where they presently work or to new employers, the Ministry of Labour has said.
“A total of 239,883 expat workers have corrected their status so far,” the Ministry said in a statement published by Saudi daily Arab News.
It added that on average 34,262 workers on average across the kingdom have corrected their status every week since the amnesty began.
The amnesty expires on July 3 and the ministry has cancelled the annual leave of its workers in a bid to process as many expat workers as possible, the newspaper added.
Remittances earned by illegal workers cost Saudi Arabia 10 percent of its GDP during the decade to 2002, according to research by a Saudi economist.
Expatriates who operated illegal businesses in the kingdom remitted SR635.7bn ($169.5bn) to their home countries between 1992 and 2002, Professor Abdul Aziz Diyab said.
In April, Saudi Arabia gave illegal foreign workers a three-month grace period to legalise their status, after panic over reported mass deportations.
Expats, mostly from Asian nations, who do not have proper travel documents have been able to receive them from their respective consulate without fear of prosecution.
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