Saudi Arabia's government statistics agency said in its latest report that about 2 600 foreign expatriates are daily expelled from the labor market, during the first quarter of this year, while unemployment figures remain high among Saudi youth in particular.
The agency pointed out that 234.2 thousand workers left the labor market during the first quarter of this year, while the total foreign workers in the Kingdom reached 10.18 million at the end of the first quarter, compared with 10.42 million workers by the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, with a decline of 2.25% in the number of expatriate labors.
The figures show that the unemployment rate for Saudis increases to 12.9%, compared with 12.8% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017. In fact, the unemployment rate among males is 7.6% and 30.9% for females.
Observers question the ability of the Saudi authorities to reduce unemployment due to the country's economic recession and the unprecedented campaign launched by the Saudi heir “Mohammed bin Salman” against the businessmen for "anti-corruption" allegations, forcing them to smuggle their money abroad and freeze and close number of their investments.
The rise in unemployment rate increases despite the government’s reforms, which have led, after three years, to the resettlement of many economic sectors, in order to reduce unemployment rates among citizens.
On the other hand, taxes imposed by the Saudi authorities on expatriates and residents, led to the leave of tens of thousands of them, where the government began in early 2018 to collect money from expatriate workers between 300 – 400 riyals (80 to 106.7 dollars) per month, which would lead to economic problems for Saudi Arabia, namely, the difficulty of providing alternative and trained local labor; which may affect the economic performance of some sectors.
#unemployment #Saudi_Arabia #foreign_workers
English 
العربية