More than 50,000 illegal Pakistani workers would face deportation after July 3 under new labour laws in Saudi Arabia.
The illegal workers are not only bread-winner for their families, but also play a key role in the economy in the form of remittances.
Under the new labour laws, overseas workers are restricted to work for their sponsors only in the field registered in their residence papers.
According to Express Tribune, remittances from foreign workers are important to the economies of countries such as the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia is the largest source of remittances for Pakistan, though most of the Pakistani workers there are associated with low-paid jobs.
Remittances sent home by overseas Pakistanis touched 12.8 billion dollars in 11 months of the current fiscal year and that figure will cross 15 billion dollars by year-end.
More From This Section
According to the new labour policy, the Saudi government will create a database of worker salaries which will affect remittances.
The unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia is around 12 percent, of which 40 percent are high-school graduates.
Therefore the labour ministry wanted to implement Nitaqat system, designed in 2011, to boost employment, the report said.
Under Nitaqat, every company has to employ 6 to 30 percent native people depending on the size and nature of work the company does, it added.
According to the report, with stricter new labour laws, Saudi Arabia is trying to reduce the labour black market among an estimated nine million foreigners working in the country.