Crown Prince Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior, has drawn attention to one of the most important issues facing Saudi society - unemployment, especially of university graduates. The Crown Prince has directed the ministries of education, civil services and finance to tackle this pressing problem on a priority basis. With thousands of young men and women graduating with higher education diplomas and degrees each year, a way must be found to provide them with gainful employment so that their skills can be used for the development of the nation. Prince Naif called for greater cooperation between the public and private sectors to address this problem. The private sector needs to specify the job skills that it is looking for in young graduates and the education ministries need to provide the appropriate curricula so that graduates will be able to meet the requirements of the job market. Based on the Crown Prince's directives, the Ministry of Health will employ 14,000 young Saudis who have health care diplomas and 28,552 graduates in other health-related fields. Prince Naif also directed other government departments to absorb 4,000 graduates and the private sector to absorb a further 6,000. The vast majority of unemployed graduates are women and to address this problem, the Crown Prince has called for the setting up of women's sections in all government departments and for greater efforts to be made to create job opportunities for women. He has also called upon private sector companies to suggest short and long-term solutions to the unemployment problem. It is gratifying to note that soon after being named Crown Prince, Prince Naif has tackled an issue of crucial importance to society. Tens of thousands of young men and women graduate from institutions of higher learning in the Kingdom each year. It is a well-known fact that a significant percentage of them cannot find jobs and that this is especially true for women graduates. On the one hand this means that many young people do not have a positive start to their professional lives, while on the other, it means that the Kingdom is not making use of the energy and skills of its young people in the development of the nation. Crown Prince Naif is right to address this issue and to underline its importance to the nation. __
