Labor Minister Adel Fakeih, speaking this week to the Sixth Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh, has said that the Kingdom must create three million new jobs in the next three years.
He also said that a further three million have to be created by the year 2030.
Despite initial appearances, there is, in fact, no contradiction in these two sets of figures. The stark reality is that for all the talk and hopes over the past decade about implementing Saudization — handing over jobs currently held by expatriates to Saudis — it has not worked. As a result, Saudi Arabia has been unable to deliver work to the growing army of young Saudis entering the employment market over that period of time. Consequently, there is a substantial and worrying amount of young unemployed. Simply addressing the existing challenge, not to mention the additional number of youngsters looking for work between now and 2015, will require the creation of a massive number of job opportunities. Then, on top of that, there will be the millions more coming onto the market between 2015 and 2030.
Nonetheless, the numbers quoted by the minister are dramatic. In the past, a figure of some 400,000 new jobs needed each year has been mentioned. That was challenging enough. To find no less than one million every year for the next three years seems a Herculean task. In an economy the size of China or the US, with their skills and massive markets, it would be difficult enough. In normal circumstances, then, there would be every reason for pessimism in the Kingdom.
After all, the barriers to achieving the goal of rapid mass employment are well understood. As said, Saudization, with its requirement that a flat 30 percent of all employees in an organization should be Saudi citizens has been all too often honored in the breach. There are still eight million expatriate workers in the Kingdom, many of whom are doing jobs which could be taken by Saudis.
That has to be the key. Painful though the prospect of Saudization is to those foreigners who have jobs here, it is the only means of meeting the target of mass employment fast.
For once, it seems to be working. The Nitaqat Program, launched last fall, has given teeth to the drive for Saudi jobs for Saudi people.
Part of the strength of Nitaqat lies in its flexibility. The minimum proportion of jobs in businesses that should go to Saudi citizens varies according to sector. Thus for instance, the figure is six percent in construction, through more than 19 percent in the media to 49 percent in banking.
In saying that three million jobs are needed by 2015, Fakeih has, moreover, taken up the challenge of finding jobs not just for Saudi men but for Saudi women as well. In fact, he made that quite clear with his announcement that 50 new job centers are to be set up for women.
This matters because the rising cost of living means that, increasingly, Saudi families cannot live on the husband's salary alone. When it averages SR2,800 a month - even college graduates earn little more than SR 8,000 a month — Saudi wives need to be income earners as well. As some Saudi figures have noted in recent years, the most sought-after potential wife in the country is one with a job!
But it is not just jobs, but decently-paid jobs — for both sexes — that are necessary. Fakeih's demand is that not only a percentage of jobs go to Saudis but also a percentage of salary budgets go some way to meeting this aim, but women have to be included in it as well. As it is, so far they represent a minimal percentage of the Saudi workforce; there is clearly a long way to go to substantially increasing their numbers. But we should not forget those women already in the workforce, the vast majority being schoolteachers. They too have to be given a decent salary.
The final challenge is to qualify young Saudis for the workplace. While there are very many well-educated graduates unable to find work, it is clear that there are also too many youngsters with more modest aspirations, who lack the necessary vocational training to grasp work opportunities. While firms themselves can go some way with on-the-job training, it is now accepted that vocational training colleges also need to up their game.
The argument that the SR2,000-a-month unemployment benefit for 750,000 Saudis who have no work is a disincentive is plain wrong. It is a perfectly proper safety net which lasts only 12 months. Those who benefit are also given a wide range of support to find work ranging from writing CVs to basic training and job matching. We also now have an Internet-based "Virtual Labor Market" for the computer-savvy younger generation.
Yet the labor challenges facing the Kingdom remain formidable. They will only be overcome by the determination of government, business, educators — and jobless youngsters themselves — to embrace the Saudization process and create and seize the opportunities that are out there.
Dipetik dari - Arab News
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