Unemployment among Saudi nationals fell to 12.6% in the fourth quarter, “moving closer to pre-pandemic levels as coronavirus cases in the kingdom declined and business picked up,” Bloomberg reports, citing data from the General Authority for Statistics.
The figure represents a drop of 2.3% from 14.9% in the Q3 2020.
As Bloomberg notes, the drop “was particularly dramatic for Saudi women, for whom unemployment declined from over 30% to 24.4%, while female participation in the labor force continued to rise. However, it was unclear where jobs were being created, as the public sector added around 12,000 Saudi workers but the number in the private sector fell by nearly 13,000. The labor market also continued to shed expatriate jobs, with the number of foreign workers falling by more than 100,000.”
Creating jobs for Saudi citizens is one of the top priorities for Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the government’s drive for diversification with Vision 2030.
Unemployment among citizens hit a record high of 15.4% last year during the pandemic.
Last week, Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States Princess Reema bint Bandar said that the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 put Saudi Arabia in a better place to withstand the negative economic effects from the pandemic.
“Little did we know then, but Vision 2030 would be instrumental in enabling Saudi Arabia to withstand this crisis. It would become the platform toward our quick and healthy recovery. And in many ways Vision 2030 prepared Saudi Arabia for this past year. It enabled us to become resilient and resistant…because Vision 2030 was our reset, and it enabled us to not shut down over past year.”
Economists expect the Saudi economy to continue on a path to recovery in 2021 and beyond as the Kingdom and other countries in the region and world re-open.
