According to a recent newspaper report, an irate crowd of some 1,200 unemployed young men burst into the administrative office of the mujahedeen military force in Riyadh. They smashed windows and set fire to part of the building.
The young men had been waiting at the front gate because of a rumor that the office wanted to recruit people to work in foreign lands. Many of them had been waiting, with all their documents, outside the building since the night before. No doubt, many of them were desperate for work after having been refused by many employers on whose doors they had knocked.
Apparently, the young men were willing to undertake any kind of job, anywhere on earth. They certainly knew that a military job did not mean working in a posh office with comfortable chairs, red carpets and air-conditioning. The work requires harsh training in the most difficult terrain and under the burning sun in distant corners of the Kingdom.
There were a number of university graduates in the group. Gone are the days when jobs were reserved for university students long before they graduated. Now graduates are so desperate for a job that they did not mind waiting at the gate of an office all night — without sleep, food and basic amenities.
In the morning, they were mixed up with late-comers and the disorderly crowd began pushing and shoving. The results, as noted above, were smashed windows and a small fire.
This happened simply because of a rumor about job vacancies. I mention this only to bring to the attention of the authorities that unemployment in the country has reached very serious proportions. It is high time that the so-called experts, smoking their Havana cigars in posh offices in both the government and private sectors, stopped parroting the cliche that Saudis are pampered and unwilling to undertake hard work.
On the contrary, this story proves that they are willing to accept any challenge such as traveling long distances and waiting all night in order to get a job. This incident should make the authorities stop saying that there is no unemployment among Saudi youth. Their silence would be more comforting than their empty talk.
