TAIF, 27 February 2003 — Unemployment is a serious problem in Taif, with large numbers of university graduates competing for the few available jobs. Unemployed students told Al-Madinah daily that they are angry at the unemployment office, the Saudization committee and the chamber of commerce for not making greater efforts to solve their problem.
“I am a university graduate with 12 certificates,” Khalid Al-Ghamdi says. “I have been looking for a job for four years now. I visited several government agencies. After many appointments at the employment office in Taif, all I could find was a job in a chicken factory, and it wasn’t easy getting that job. Imagine, a university graduate with 12 certificates, and I am a chicken factory worker.
“Where is the employment office, and why they are not enforcing Saudization in a place full of foreign workers?” Saad Awad agrees.
“The main problem of the employment office is that if you don’t have connections you cannot have a job. There are not that many opportunities available. Instead of sitting in their office, they should go and see the reality of foreigners controlling thousands of jobs,” Awad adds.
“Unemployment is a serious problem in Taif,” Mansour Saleem, director of human resource management, says.
“If businessmen participated in training graduates and employing them, we would not have so much unemployment problem here.”
Al-Madinah tried to contact the employment office and the Taif Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who had promised to answer their questions, but there was no reply.
