RIYADH, 22 September 2006 — Some 133,000 Saudi youths have been provided jobs in the private sector since January 2005 till last month.

This accounts for 85 percent of the total number of job applicants registered in that period, the Saudi Press Agency reported yesterday.

In a statement ahead of the Kingdom’s National Day, Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi said the Ministry of Labor has been striving to achieve the Kingdom’s strategic goal of job nationalization by adopting all possible means..

“The most significant of these means is the employment campaign in the private sector. Another very effective step has been to persuade the private sector to absorb untrained youths and provide them training under a scheme financed by the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF). The scheme enabled untrained youths to become practically qualified for various kinds of jobs,” Al-Gosaibi said.

The minister also underscored the support offered by the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training and the HRDF in replacing the foreign work force by the local hands.

Trained Saudi youths have helped the ministry slash down the manpower import without damaging the private sector’s interests or the demands of the national economic growth, he said.

“The Labor Ministry looks up at the private sector as an equal partner in the task of finding employment for Saudi youths,” said the minister. “Therefore the ministry has adopted a policy based on the principle of partnership and cooperation with the private sector aimed at attracting, training and employing Saudis to end the dependence on foreign workers.”

The minister lauded the role played by the HRDF, which offers financial support including part of the salaries of the newly recruited Saudis in the private sector.

However, the minister noted with dismay that there were still some employers who failed to allocate the stipulated percentage of jobs to Saudis.

“The ministry has been engaged in continuous dialogue with the private sector to exchange ideas and viewpoints in order to find solutions to the obstacles that stand in the way of employing Saudis,” said the minister. “Meetings and workshops have been held under the aegis of the chambers of commerce and industry besides including representatives of the private sector in various committees and action teams for this purpose,” he added.