Manufacturing sector has few Saudi workers

The Central Department of Statistics and Information has announced that 78 percent of the 3.19 million workers in the secondary manufacturing sector are expatriates.
Non-Saudis numbered 2.5 million versus 696,000 Saudis, representing a mere 22 percent of the sector’s manpower and working in agriculture and construction industry. 
The report has taken into consideration two economic sectors of service and manufacturing during the period 2006 and 2012. Saudis accounted for 53 percent, or 3.9 million workers, of the service sector’s 7.4 million employees who occupy jobs in administration and education.
The secondary sector of the economy is considered a measurement of the economy’s ability to produce different types of end products that can achieve genuine economic growth for better living conditions. When analyzed, the sector’s growth rates provide elements that give an indication of the level of economic activity and reveal its points of strengths and weaknesses.
The report showed that more graduates in specialties that can be utilized by the sector are needed given the fact that 87 percent of Saudi university graduates major with service-related subjects and 69 percent of them are concentrated in management, arts and humanities, Islamic studies and health care. By contrast, an important service-sector major such as media and journalism accounted for only one percent of the total number of university graduates in 2012. 
Saudis graduating with manufacturing-related majors represented only 13 percent of the total number of graduates during the given period and they were concentrated (96 percent of them) in engineering, engineering industries and physics.
Workers in the country’s service and manufacturing sectors numbered 10.6 million at the end of 2012, with Saudis accounting for 44 percent.
The year 2011 witnessed the lowest percentage of Saudis in both sectors as they accounted for 36 percent of the total number of the work force — 20 percent in the secondary sector and 41 percent in the service sector. However, the highest proportion of Saudis in the secondary sector did not exceed 23 percent during the study period.
The proportion of Saudis in the service sector ranged between 41 percent in 2011 (lowest) and 55 percent in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (highest).