Many articles continue to blame the private sector for the high rate of unemployment among Saudis, accusing businessmen of being greedy and selfish. The sector is being blamed for setting difficult conditions for job applicants: long working hours, low pay and, in some cases, requiring long years of experience.
True as all this maybe, there is plenty of blame to be laid on the public sector as well. The level of selfishness that the public sector continues to display has further complicated the situation and frustrated attempts to reduce unemployment through replacing non-Saudis working for the government with Saudis.
Take, for example, the ministries of Education and Civil Service when it comes to employing Saudis. Every year the Ministry of Education announces positions for English language teachers in elementary schools; a diploma in English is required.
Recently, however, it has altered this requirement to a BA instead of a diploma. The civil service should not have allowed this new requirement since it has only increased the number of unemployed instead of reducing it.
Another example of how the public sector is not helping in overcoming the unemployment problem is the recent move by the Ministry of Civil Service asking government departments not to renew contracts of expatriate employees who have spent 10 years in government service and to renew the contracts only if there are no Saudis to fill the post. Why wait 10 years and allow expatriates to work in government jobs instead of employing jobless Saudis?
At Jeddah Municipality there used to be a department for collecting payments. Now the municipality has privatized the job and asked a private company to collect the money for it. The result has been that 38 Saudis who had spent years working for the municipality were fired and the private company refused to hire them. The private sector is thus not alone in having to share the blame; the public sector is just as guilty.
