The Saudi cultural attaché in the US, Mohammed Al-Eisa, has told a local daily that there were 3,000 training opportunities for Saudi graduates of American universities at some of the giant companies including Boeing, Lockheed and others. The training periods vary from six months to a year. These training opportunities are, however, less than the expected 10,000 Saudi graduates who will finish their studies this year. The attaché will have to look for more training opportunities in other US companies. This is not an impossible task, especially as the training does not include paying salaries to the graduates. Without proper training it may not be easy for the graduates to find jobs in their country when they return. On another hand, Turad Al-Amri, member of the human resources committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, revealed that the private sector would launch two employment programs over the next two weeks. The first program will be named "Qualified" and the other "Your Road is Green". He expected the two initiatives to provide job opportunities for around 12,000 Saudi students who studied abroad on the King Abdullah Scholarship Program with salaries of at least SR10,000. He said a number of government departments were determined to absorb a large number of graduates from the King's program in jobs suitable to their qualifications, especially as their specializations are in demand by the labor market. It is a good thing to see the private sector cooperate with the government to provide jobs for graduates, particularly as the unemployment rate in the Kingdom in 2012 was 12.1 percent. This rate must have increased by now. Ironically, the unemployment rate in the Kingdom is double that of countries supplying it with manpower.
