Bassnawi warned that this "fake Saudisation" could "create a generation of young men and women who are not interested in finding a job and who prefer to get paid for doing nothing".

The more muscular approach to Saudisation is part of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's attempt to end the country's reliance on oil revenues through his Vision 2030. 

Part of this plan involves persuading unemployed Saudis, used to comfy state sector jobs, to take up the new vacancies in the private sector. 

Saudisation has led to the dismissal and even deportation of thousands of foreign workers, who constitute about a third of the population.

The government has hiked up fees on companies employing non-Saudis, putting further pressure on the private sector, already feeling the pinch of low oil prices.

Exapatriates are also having to pay a tax for family members living in the kingdom.

"Dependents fees for lower income expatriates as well as greater efforts to nationalise the workforce make it less economically opportune for foreign workers," John Sfakianakis, director of economic research at the Gulf Research Center, told Bloomberg Monday.

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