JEDDAH, 21 October — Private companies in the Kingdom are employing more and more Saudi youths, according to a senior official in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
The shift in the private sector’s attitude toward the Saudi workforce is mainly attributed to the increasing tendency among the graduates to become better qualified by joining training programs and technical institutes, Hamad ibn Abdullah Al-Hidaithy, director general of Riyadh’s Labor Office, said.
The encouraging moves by the private sector have helped bring down the rate of unemployment among university graduates, Al-Hidaithy said in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency.
The private sector is employing Saudi youths at a weekly average of 1,800, and last month 8,000 graduates were employed with the help of the Labor Office, the director said.
The office issues 20,000 work permits weekly and has amicably resolved 90 percent of the labor disputes without requiring litigants to seek the help of special courts.
The Labor Office’s responsibility has grown considerably as the provinces’ industrial sector has rapidly expanded over the years. The office maintains close relations with more than 100,000 officially registered establishments that require local or foreign employees.
It is the duty of the Labor Office to inspect every firm applying for foreign hands to ensure that its request is genuine. The office makes an average of 2,000 such inspections each month.
