Thread regarding Saudi Aramco layoffs

Aramco is definitely no longer a career. It used to be but those days are gone. Now it is just a means to an end and the question is whose means ends first?

None of us knew just how messed up this company was. We finally packed up, cashed out, and left. It definitely isn't a "career". Aramco is just a job, and definitely not a job that is fulfilling or that you look forward to going to every day. Living in Saudi arabia and working at Aramco was like living under water.

I also knew a guy who resigned to get transferred but he was also one of the first ones laid off. Grudges are held. If you believe you are at risk of layoff, the less noise you make, the better. My friend got moved to another department but under the same VP. If you can move to a different VP, all the better. Transferring is not impossible but the exception rather than the rule.

Listen if I had known this was going to turn out such a c---amamie show, I would not quit my previous job and accepted the offer either. So there are smarter people other there than me! Now exploring options..

If you talk to HR (admitted that is not a fool proof source of information) they will tell you that (1) all employees are eligible to transfer after 4 years of service and (2) the department you are transferring from can block the move, but only the first time a transfer request is made. If the employee finds another group that wants him after the first request is turned down, supposedly he can move without consent from the old department. That is what I was told, but there is no way to be sure if this actually works.

Personally, I am in no danger of being laid off, but not very happy with my current situation. One other expat did manage to transfer out of my group, but that was because the other department traded one of their expats for him. Another guy (not in my department) was able to move by resigning and then, when his department knew they were going to lose him, they let him move.

Petroleum Engineering. We had opportunities for people to move that would have been a real benefit to the company but any one person in the approval chain can kill the deal. Even if two VPs agree on a transfer, a supervisor can put the kibosh on it with no repercussions. It is almost impossible to move in PE. It does happen but it is rare. Exclude Unconventional from that because they did move a lot of people when that first started just to populate the department but that is done now.

What is PE

Varies by circumstance. The lists are made well in advance but are held closely. Some people were advised by friends in law department who saw the list. Some advised by their bosses who may have even put them on the list. But, in those cases, it is likely too late. The people who want to jump are probably just acting on gut instinct. Changing departments because you have problems with your boss are difficult. The boss doesn’t want to admit to a problem he may have and he certainly doesn’t want a former employee talking about him in relative safety. In addition, nobody likes to give up headcount no matter how bad things are. Better to have bad employees than fewer employees.

How much warning do they get? Or is it sudden?

I have seen expats jump departments when they thought a surplus was on the horizon and switched jobs to stay off the radar screen a little longer. It is my understanding that, once your surplus is moving, you cannot change jobs. You are done. But I think an expat switching departments is not an easy thing to do.

My department is now trying to poach Western expats from elsewhere in the company. Not that working where I am is that great, but I guess its much worse elsewhere, because we are getting plenty of discrete inquiries from other areas expats want to leave. That almost never used to happen.

I don’t know about other business lines but PE has been impossible. Offers are not competitive.

Everyone is saying that there are new batches of fresh hires pouring in (under the new reduced to skeleton packages). So is Aramco having difficulty recruiting or not? The media, especially business media, is not giving Aramco or other saudi imvestments positive feedback so what’s the story from inside?

Maybe he's trolling the aramco ratings pages entering 5 star reviews in broken english

He’s looking for someone to post for him. His poster resigned.

What happened to that saudi dude. Waiting on his comments about the 2018 mass exodus we warned about last year

Not much activity in a booth full of saudis sure isn't breaking news

Insulting the hired help seems to be working out well. Good work Saudi Aramco!

The writer is less critical than the one who has the task of turning the information into simple powerpoint slides to explain what the letter says to the recipient Aramco manager.

Official letters without pictures are confusing and it is difficult to maintain focus and easy to lose track of information while moving from sentence to sentence.

Conclusion: Comprehension is not a critical leadership skill in areas where all the websites are blocked and all the books are banned. Seems to be a common pattern across the recommended recruitment areas. I wonder why.

If you are the one in your unit that has to write all the letters, your job is secure. Letter writing is the most valuable skill set an expat can have. Second most important quality is patience so you can endure the 10 to 20 redrafts as each step in the chain has to put his fingerprint on it. Then you have to make a small change because it sat on the manager’s desk too many days so he wants the date changed but can’t ask for only that.

The color coded map is very helpful. The numbered list is confusing.

This pool of candidates will definitely and cheerfully participate in entering CRM requests for each tiny step of each task so nobody can forget or get confused about what step they are on when they are asked to do overwhelming, confusing, and complicated things like set up a phone or computer.

That makes sense. Yellow area candidates will think it is logical to be rated on “4 behaviors” by managers who ask their division heads to ask their supervisors to ask their field people to type up their manager-to-manager letters because they cannot talk directly to their peers.

https://iq-research.info/en/average-iq-by-country

Attached is a handy tool of yellow shaded areas reflecting a huge pool of candidates that are compatible with Aramco corporate culture. These areas (no stunner here) incorporate all of the previous recommendations and suggested solutions for the current recruiting deficiencies. Happy hunting!

Not much activity around the Aramco booth at the 2018 Global Petroleum Show in Calgary. The recruiters looked bored. Heard a comment that they thought there would be more interest from local petroleum professionals.

Make a hiring checklist Problem solved.

The issue here is cultural fit. The nearest pool of candidates that would thrive in a corrupt, looted, broke-@$$ company is Venezuela. Try recruiting over there. Good luck!

This site sure isnt for the purpose of discussing recruiting problems. Go post your job openings on an arabic site. As long as the jobs are managers and directors and the work involves sitting all day making phone calls and having meetings you will have a big stack of applicants.

You are getting sleepy. Very sleepy. When I count to three, you will fall asleep. One...Two... Three. SLEEP! Aramco has never had a layoff. All expats are happy and always beg to stay past 60. Every foreigner begs to work for Aramco. Now I am going to count back from 3 to 1 and you will wake up feeling very relaxed.

Distracted? Ha. Although there are a few terminations this year we are currently seeing westerners cashing out, packing, and exiting on their own, which was the reason the stick was lit and thrown it into the "retention" pond to see what floated up.

Noted with amusement is that what floated up is that retention is great and everyone actually stays for decades, just like in the last couple of years there were actually no layoffs.

Saudization? Accepted. Call and raise. Desks being cleaned chairs being emptied and ready to occupy. Saudization means Get up, Buy some work clothes, Get to work. BUT: I really don't see Saudization being celebrated or discussed on this site.

What are they actually doing? Insulting the exiting expats and their home countries THEN going back to the same places the exiting expats came from and trying to recruit new expats at reduced rates and benefits. Which doesn't seem to be working out, very much like the magical utopian society they built from the ground up over there didn't work out.

Celebration of Saudization is all good. Insulting laid off expats or exiting expats and their home countries (especially if absolutely nothing you have was built or done yourselves) isn't going to work out at all.

So here we are again. Saudi defender guy vs expat guy trying to see who has the longest dongle. Or is it? Is there really some GC 14 Saudi trying to match wits with GC 14 expat? Or is it something else? Why would any Saudi really care about negative comments about his company and have the energy to keep it up? Why would any executive care when he has minions to do his bidding? More likely a Mackenzie (or SCL) hack trying to put a positive spin for the IPO? They are trying ti distract and you are getting distracted. You are both diverting the message but for different reasons. Aramco can no longer higher Americans. Aramco no longer cares anything about Americans. Or Canadians, Or Europeans. Or expats period. They have to Saudize. It is what it is. So get back on point. Who is getting laid off and when? That is what this website is for. Not who has done better research on website news.

You are still trying to defend an unreasonable unrepresentative hyperlink. I ask again, how many laborers does Saudi Aramco source from the USA?

The aramco turnover that I saw around me reflected the stats in the article yes. The reported stats in the article reflected the stay of expats (all) in the "magic kingdom" and pretty much smoked that whole concept of "magic". Noted with amusement that "magic" has been dropped from this discussion. That was planned, intended, signed, sealed, delivered. You're fckn welcome.

Aramco (for instance) could not have bought and wasted and misused 10 years of (my) time with any amount of money. We packed and bailed wayyyyy before that happened and good riddance to it.

The stats are abysmal and nobody on this board owns them. None of us are or were employers or business owners in KSA. Not allowed to be. We assuredly and comfortably have and had nothing to do with your turnover issues and no matter how many times you honk and flash your lights and rev your mouth and importantly shove your words in here to order it to be so we will never, ever own it.

You provided the MOI hyperlink for all expats and tried to pass it off as representing Saudi Aramco expats. Fake representation. You own it.

Smart move to divert attention from the magic kingdom. That wasn't going to work out at all.

We are talking of Saudi Aramco. We are talking of recent experiences in different departments of Saudi Aramco. At last hiring round it was true. Sorry to break your bubble. Next.

That's not true of any company. Next.

Yes. Not one offer has been rejected from a candidate.

You are the only one failing to offer explanation on recruiting difficulties, unless you are denying that they exist?

Nothing on this thread requires proof and no-one has posted proof of what they say, but they all substantiate based on their experiences. Your experience is different to mine, not superior or inferior.