The Ministry of Labor's Undersecretary for Labor Affairs, Ahmad Al-Humaidan, revealed that the private sector has, over the past two months, increased the salaries of more than 180,000 Saudi workers with the average salary now reaching SR3,000. According to Al-Humaidan, the ministry will launch a social dialogue on salaries next month. Al-Humaidan mentioned the average salary and not the minimum and it is important to differentiate between the two as there is a sizable difference. Perhaps the dialogue he is talking about will conclude that the minimum wage for Saudis should be SR3,000, even if this means the Human Resources Development Fund has to pitch in to ensure that Saudis are being adequately compensated at the work place. The undersecretary also revealed that the Kingdom recruits one million foreign laborers every year versus the 615,000 Saudis who entered the job market in the past one year and six months. While acknowledging the country's unemployment rate stood at 12 percent, he said the ministry will find short term solutions that will provide some relief to the country's unemployed but stopped short of going into specifics. We have been talking for a long time about such solutions, whether short or long term, without seeing any results. Programs like Nitaqat and Hafiz are some of the initiatives taken by the ministry to combat unemployment and in the case of Nitaqat, over one million CV's were submitted to the program but the ministry only managed to secure 7,000 jobs — 7,000 jobs for one million job seekers essentially means zero progress. Al-Humaidan talks about “short term solutions” which basically means there are no solutions in sight. We need a long term strategy to tackle unemployment. We need to concentrate on developing a knowledge-based society as it is our only salvation in a future with no oil.
