Saudi Arabia was an attractive prospect for jobseekers for years, thanks to its high salaries and lack of income tax. Those benefits still apply, but a series of terrorist attacks in the last two years, aimed specifically at Westerners, may give some applicants pause - not to mention people already working in the country.
Western housing compounds have come under attack from suicide bombers and a Lockheed Martin employee was murdered by suspected al-Qaeda terrorists last month. All of this has contributed to an atmosphere of trepidation among the 5.6 million expatriate workers in the country.
Aerospace companies with a heavy Saudi Arabian presence, including BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, are having to look at steps to retain existing staff and attract new employees, in the face of potentially serious danger.
BAE Systems, for example, has around 4,800 staff in Saudi Arabia working for high profile customers, including the Royal Saudi Navy. Just under half of those employees are Westerners - around 2,000 Britons and 300 Australians.
BAE admits there have been resignations and last month revealed it had offered one-off payments - described as "retention bonuses" - to keep staff, which many employees have taken up.
A rolling programme of safety reviews at all the company's compounds is in place and security measures, already extensive due to the sensitive nature of some of BAE's work, have been stepped up.
Apart from physical precautions, the company is also conducting a programme to keep staff alert and aware of the situation. They are encouraged to keep the telephone numbers of emergency control rooms on their mobiles for easy access, for example.
Lines of communication with the Saudi authorities and the British embassy in Riyadh are maintained and, in line with advice from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, BAE has advised dependents of Western workers to leave the country.
Walid Abukhaled, a BAE spokesman based in Saudi Arabia, says it is uncertainty that is causing the most concern to workers. "We don't really know what we're up against," he says. "It's not a war. No one knows their numbers or capabilities. That's the concern, that we don't know what's next."
Even more jarring is the fact that, until recently, Saudi Arabia was one of the safer countries in the world. The impact on recruitment of foreign workers to work in the country is harder to gauge, but the perceived dangers are clearly of concern to applicants.
"What people hear in the Western media affects them," says Abukhaled. "We are just realistic with them and tell them how it is, briefing them on all the security improvements and so on, so they know what to expect. The last thing we want is for staff coming here with a wrong impression of the situation."
BAE is keen to stress that incidents are isolated. "It's not Iraq," says the company. "Apart from the fact Westerners are being specifically targeted, Saudi is in general still safer than Los Angeles."
Source: Flight International
