Next month, 2.5 million jobless Saudis will have a big chance to compete for 3445 jobs. Oh yes! This massive number of jobless Saudis have very interesting details that I will share here, if you don’t mind.
A recent study presented at the Jeddah Economic Forum 2014 revealed that 44.2 percent of jobless Saudis are highly educated, 30.3 percent are diploma holders, 11.8 percent are high school graduates and only 13.3 percent have education less than high school.
According to this, we have at least one million jobless Saudis with university degrees and higher. This is a number that should re-direct the question: Why wasn’t the private sector capable of absorbing at least half of them? The excuse of ‘education’ is no longer valid.
The Saudi government is trying at this moment to accommodate 3445 jobless Saudis. This is of course one way of filling the vacant jobs that became vacant mostly through the retirement of others.
So, it is a solution that may help comfort some of the jobless. But when will the government be capable of questioning private sector for its negligence?
n The writer is Media Manager, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences.
