Al-Riyadh WHICH is the government agency that can estimate the number of jobs available for Saudis? In other words which are the jobs currently occupied expatriates that can be replaced by Saudis? I don't think such statistics is available in detail explaining the number and quality of such jobs. Such statistics are essential for the government to solve the country's unemployment problem and help Saudi jobseekers to find suitable jobs. For more than 15 years and until the end of 2016, the unemployment rate in the Kingdom is estimated at 12.3 percent — 5.9 percent among men and 34.5 percent among women. The number of jobseekers among Saudi men is 177,573 and women 739,990. These are official figures. Every year new jobseekers appear and we should know the number of such jobseekers. I wish if they had given details of these jobseekers, explaining their educational qualifications, experience and their year of graduation. Now the question is how many jobs are available in the private sector, let alone the opportunities in trade and industry. How many jobs are available in the contracting, food and transportation sectors? Statistics about the available job opportunities is important to absorb jobseekers. I have read in newspapers that the car rental market offers 200,000 jobs while Uber and Careem said they would create up to 200,000 new jobs for Saudis in the next two years. These two companies together offer 400,000 jobs, if these newspaper reports can be believed. In order to be more objective, let's reduce this figure by half to find 200,000 job vacancies, which would be more than enough to employ 177,000 jobseekers. Do you think this will solve the unemployment problem in the Kingdom? I don't think so because of a lack of accuracy in figures. We need correct figures of available jobs and the number of jobseekers. The Ministry of Labor and Social Development should take the initiative to prepare this statistics. It should give in detail the number of jobs available and the number of Saudi hands looking for jobs. I would like to know whether the ministry's efforts to achieve 100 percent Saudization in some sectors were successful or not. We expect an explanation from the ministry to highlight what had happened for the 100 percent Saudization program. We need correct figures regarding the job market. Then we shall study the available national cadre to take up those jobs. Women work force can play a big role in filling vacancies as they represent double the figure of unemployed Saudi men. How can we create more job opportunities for Saudi women? How can we solve the unemployment problem without having correct data on the job market situation? Any strategy to fight unemployment requires correct statistics.
