What's Saudization going to take? 30,000 jobs a year

At least one million vacancies must be created to tackle unemployment among Saudis and 300,000 jobs are needed annually to absorb new graduates entering the labor market, according to a consultant on economic affairs.

Fadhl Al-Buainain told Al-Riyadh Arabic daily that the number of expatriate workers in the country was increasing despite the campaigns to organize and reform the labor market.

He said the most pressing problem in the Saudi labor market is that expatriates control 42 percent of available jobs, making it difficult for competent Saudis looking for jobs to find employment.

Among the problems in the labor market are low salaries, which in many cases stand at a meager SR1,500 a month, Al-Buainain said, adding that minimum wage should be SR5,000.

Despite the number of job openings for women compared to their male counterparts, unemployment among women is three times that of men.

Al-Buainain said the lack of precise indices and transparent statistics prevents improving the labor market especially as contradictory data are issued by different government authorities.

“Treatment begins with diagnosing the problem, knowing its magnitude and the requirements for its treatment. This cannot be achieved in the absence of precise and transparent data and statistics,” he said.

“The ministries of labor, education and higher education which I believe have contributed to increasing the problems of the labor market due the number of graduates with qualifications the labor market does not need. For example, the labor market is in need of male and female doctors, pharmacists and engineers. The percentage of graduates in these fields is very limited,” Al-Buainain said.

He said the programs for tackling unemployment have contributed to creating a parallel crisis in the labor market and disrupting the market. This situation was exploited by the private sector in order to obtain visas for expatriate workers.

He claimed the private sector is paying salaries to Saudis who are not working in its firms.

“They get salaries for officially registering their names as Saudi employees in these firms. This is more serious than unemployment as it leads to creating a lazy generation that does not like to work and knows nothing about work. The low income that they get without any effort affects others,” he said.