Delivering the Kingdom’s speech at the meeting of Labor Ministers from G20 countries in Washington on Wednesday, the minister reiterated Saudi Arabia’s keenness in creating more jobs for its nationals and preserving their jobs through vigorous implementation of several measures, including Saudization.
The Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday that Al-Homaid noted there had been a decrease in the percentage of unemployed Saudis during the financial crisis period comparing with the earlier period.
“There was also a surge in demand for workers in the private sector during the crisis,” he said while noting that the market did not witness any instances of mass sacking of workers as happened in several other countries.
The deputy minister was the head of the Saudi delegation to the two-day meeting of the grouping of top 20 economies of the world that concluded on Wednesday. The ministers, meeting for the first time on a global scale under the G20 umbrella to help their leaders coordinate labor-market policies, agreed that even though there has been a turnaround in economies globally, the job market is still struggling to get a much-needed respite from the dark clouds of high unemployment rates. They stressed the need to create new jobs and preservation of the existing ones as the working class across the globe are among most hit by the current global economic crisis. In a joint statement, the ministers urged G20 leaders to prioritize employment and poverty alleviation as they lay the foundation for strong, sustained and balanced growth that is beneficial to all.
In his speech, Al-Homaid pointed out that Saudi Arabia is among the countries less affected by the global financial crisis. He attributed this to several factors, including broad economic policies and structural reforms pursued by the government as well as the economic prosperity being witnessed in the Kingdom since 2004. “This has resulted in bringing in a huge financial surplus and thus had helped with launching mega development projects. The government’s policy to have sound financial reserves also contributed substantially in further strengthening the economy to weather the fallout of the economic meltdown,” he said.
Al-Homaid said Saudi Arabia would continue its efforts to further stimulate the national economy through increased government spending.
“The Kingdom had earmarked about $70 billion for development projects in the budget for the year 2010 out of a total government spending amounting to $144 billion (SR 540 billion),” he said.
It is noteworthy that Saudi Arabia, while attending the G20 Summit held in November 2008, had announced that the government spending would exceed $400 billion over the coming five years.
The deputy minister said the Kingdom’s labor market remained intact during the financial crisis period. “We did not notice any cases of mass sacking of workers as was seen in other parts of the world. There is a follow up committee under the Labor Ministry to monitor if there was any such sacking of Saudi nationals happening in the private sector. The committee was tasked with solving problems of such employees on first come first serve basis. The committee is keen to find out suitable jobs for those retrenched in other firms,” he said.
Al-Homaid said there has been continuous demand for workers in the private sector. “As many as 144,000 Saudi job seekers were employed in the private sector during the year 2009. There was also substantial increase in the number of foreign workers hired during the period. More than 982,000 labor visas had been issued for the private sector last year. On the contrary, visas issued for the government sector account for 61,000 in addition to 496,000 visas for house workers,” he said.
