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29 March 2024

Unemployment can’t be wiped out: Saudi

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By Staff

Saudi Arabia has admitted it would be impossible to wipe out unemployment and that a government job drive is targeting women given the high jobless rate among them.

Minister of economy and planning Mohammed Al Jassir said the government had created a large number of jobs for Saudis over the past two years within a radical programme dubbed “Nitaqat” which forces companies to employ more Saudis.

He said the campaign had resulted in a sharp rise of Saudis working in the private sector to nearly 1.4 million at the end of 2013 from around 750,000 10 years ago, adding that this made him optimistic about future employment programmes.

“But we have to acknowledge that unemployment in Saudi Arabia will not be eliminated…this is normal in life,” he told Aleatisadiah newspaper.

“We are not concentrating on reducing unemployment among women because it is very high…we still consider the jobless rate among males as reasonable.”

Saudi officials have estimated there were around 450,000 jobless citizens at the end of 2012 despite an ongoing government campaign to replace its large foreign workforce with Saudis and avert possible social turmoil similar to other Arab countries.

Although the Gulf kingdom has repeatedly urged the private sector to employ more Saudis, the sector remains dominate by expatriate workers, estimated 6.9 million.

The expatriate workers in the private sector account for more than 80 per cent of the total foreign workers of nearly 8.4 million in the world’s dominant oil exporter.

Saudi Arabia, which controls around a fifth of the world’s proven oil deposits, launched the landmark job nationalization programme Nitaqat in mid-2011 in a bid to tackle national unemployment, which was estimated at around 11 per cent at the end of 2010. The level is far higher among women, estimated at over 30 per cent. Male and female university graduates also suffer from high joblessness rate of more than 20 per cent.