An Arabic TV program will soon be launched to help unemployed Saudis get jobs.

“Jobs on air” will kick off on the Saudi-owned Al-Danah TV starting this week, according to the program host.

“The program will help jobless Saudi men and women get jobs after undergoing training in the fields they are interested in,” Mohsin Shaikh Al-Hassan told Arab News on Monday.

The program will air for two hours every Friday night starting in the first week of September.

Al-Hassan said that local and foreign firms are hesitant to hire Saudi graduates because of lack of training and skills.

“We will train them so that they can acquire skills for the jobs they will acquire through the program,” he said.

“We are coordinating with the Labor Ministry and the human resources departments of various companies to get these youth trained and ready to work.”

He said that there are about over a million unemployed young Saudi men and women.

“These youth should ideally be employed since the Kingdom is in need of manpower,” he said.

“This is clear from the eight million foreigners working in different sectors in the Kingdom,” Al-Hassan said.

He added that “Jobs on air” will not only help train young Saudi university and college graduates, but also university staff so that they can help produce quality graduates.

“We will help their students undergo training in big local and foreign firms in their respective fields so that they can easily gets jobs later on.

They may even by hired by the companies they train in,” he said.

The program will call on young Saudi men and women looking for jobs to send in their curriculum vitae (CV).

“The CVs should include their names, qualifications, job experience and preference and the province where they want to be assigned if they’re hired,” he said.

He added that many Saudis don’t have jobs because they don’t want to be assigned outside their province. However, he noticed that many are willing to work elsewhere as long as they are employed. One such candidate is Luai Fowzi Felemban, who had just graduated from a prestigious university in Jeddah, but agreed to be assigned in a big car company’s branch in the Saudi capital earning SR6,000 a month.

“I am away from my family, but not all young Saudis like me are given this opportunity to work in a prestigious company,” he said.

Al-Hassan added that the CVs will be forwarded to different companies throughout the Kingdom.

The program is expected to contribute to decrease unemployment rates in the Kingdom.

Records show that unemployment rate decreased to 5.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 from 5.6 percent in the third quarter of the same year.