Arab News, Saturday, Apr 01, 2023 | Ramadan 10, 1444
Unemployment among Saudis falls to all-time low of 8%
Saudi Arabia: The unemployment rate
among Saudis has dropped to its lowest level since records began in 1991.
It fell to 8 percent in the fourth quarter of
2022, from 9.9 percent in the previous three months, according to the General
Authority for Statistics’ labor force survey.
The Kingdom has set itself a target unemployment
rate of 7 percent by 2030.
The country’s overall employment rate, including
non-citizens, fell to 4.8 percent in the final three months of 2022, from 5.8
percent the previous quarter, the General Authority for Statistics said in a
statement.
“The impressive decrease in the unemployment rate
resulted from a double effect of the decrease in labor force participation and
at the same time the employment growth,” Gastat said in its report.
The overall unemployment rate includes foreign
residents of the Kingdom, who comprised just over a third of the total
population in 2021, the majority of whom need an employment contract to live
there.
Job creation, especially for Saudi nationals, over
60 percent of whom are under the age of 35, is a key part of the ambitious
economic agenda known as Vision 2030, spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman to cut reliance on oil.
Joblessness among Saudis fell 3 percentage points
from 11 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Workforce participation among female citizens is
also on the rise. Unemployment among Saudi women dropped to 15.4 percent in the
final three months of 2022 from 20.5 percent in the previous quarter, though
their labor force participation rate fell 1 percentage point to 36 percent.
The labor force participation rate and the
employment-to-population ratio of Saudi males increased to 65.7 percent and 68.5
percent, respectively.
Expansion of the non-oil private sector is a key
pillar of Vision 2030, with a wide-ranging program of privatizations and other
government-supported initiatives to spur growth.
The latest data showed that 94.1 percent of
unemployed Saudis would accept jobs in the private sector, slightly higher than
in the third quarter of 2022. Historically, the public sector has been the
principal employer of Saudi citizens.
Moreover, 57.8 percent of unemployed Saudi females
and 43.6 percent of unemployed Saudi males would accept a maximum commuting time
to work of one hour.
Similarly, 73 percent of unemployed Saudi females
and 89.1 percent of unemployed Saudi males indicated they would accept work for
eight hours or more per day.