JEDDAH, 26 February 2005 — Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi yesterday revealed plans to find jobs within a few months for 77,790 Saudis, who represent half of the total male jobseekers in the country by intensifying the Saudization drive.
In a statement issued yesterday, the minister said as many as 155,579 Saudis, mostly men under 30, had applied for jobs when the ministry launched a campaign to register male jobseekers across the country.
Gosaibi said a separate campaign would be carried out shortly to register female jobseekers after opening women’s sections at the ministry’s branch offices throughout the country. Women account for the majority of unemployed Saudis.
Gosaibi said 180,443 people had registered for jobs at 46 centers. Of them 24,864 were removed from the list as they were either employed or running their own businesses, he pointed out. He said the number of jobseekers accounted for 4.9 percent of the total Saudi male work force.
Spelling out the age group of jobseekers, he said 68 percent of them were between 16 and 25 and 88 percent unmarried while 57 percent had their education level below secondary. However, he pointed out that 14 percent of the jobseekers held bachelor or higher degrees. The majority of them came from Riyadh, Abha, Jeddah, Madinah, Jizan, Al-Ahsa, Makkah and Taif.
“The next step will be to find jobs for them by conducting a survey of job opportunities in the private sector and urging big companies to increase the number of Saudi workers as per Saudization regulations,” Gosaibi said.
He said the ministry would provide short-term crash courses in association with the Manpower Development Fund to help Saudi jobseekers fill opportunities in the private sector. It will also connect the jobseekers with the firms that are having job opportunities to sign contracts.
Gosaibi warned that the ministry would punish companies which are negligent in implementing Saudization regulations. At least 30 percent of employees at companies having 20 or more workers must be Saudi by the middle of next year.
He said the ministry would continue to control the issuance of recruitment visas to curtail dependence on foreign workers. Last year, recruitment visas for private companies were cut by 17.8 percent to reach 684,201 from 832,244 the year before.
“The new measures do not mean banning recruitment or getting rid of foreign workers. Rather, they aim at creating jobs for the national work force,” the minister said.
