With the results of the general secondary school certificate out, we are going to witness more young people joining the lists of the unemployed. The fresh graduates will either stop pursuing higher education in search of work to support themselves and their families or join the unfortunate who could not secure a seat at our universities. In either case, the result is more pressure on a job market already unable to absorb the rising numbers of job-seekers, some of who have been looking for work for years now.
The tragedy about this job-hunting drama is that university graduates are fighting with others to join the military services with the rank of private. The job is mostly sought by high school graduates and until recently by those who finished elementary education.
The fight for this kind of jobs reflects the plight of the armies of unemployed Saudi youth who have become a liability to their families, causing mounting tension and anxiety in the family. College graduates now view applying for the job of a solider not as catastrophic; for them something is better than nothing. A university degree these days does not guarantee its holder the job they seek.
There is another problem here. According to a statement quoting the director of Riyadh Passports Department, college graduates applying for a job with the department must forget they finished college. Applicants must relinquish their certificate and agree to apply on the basis of their secondary school certificate. The idea is to provide room for the huge numbers of high school graduates vying for the same job.
The department offered 280 jobs, but the officials did not say how many college and high school graduates applied or how many university graduates agreed to relinquish their certificates. According to some reports, as many as 6,000 young people from all parts of the Kingdom applied for a limited number of jobs for a monthly salary of SR2,500.
It was pathetic seeing those long queues of young people waiting outside the premises from early in the morning to present their papers for a job when no one knew whether the lucky would be the high school graduates or university degree holders.
Unemployment is a problem facing all countries. But the responsibility lies with the governments who must face the situation and strive to provide work for their citizens.
