Saudi Arabia’s unemployment rate drops to 12.7%

JEDDAH: The unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia fell to 12.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to official data published on Sunday by the General Authority for Statistics.
A quarterly bulletin indicated a slight improvement in the rate, which stood at 12.8 percent in the third quarter of last year.
The unemployment rate among Saudi males stood at 6.6 percent, compared to 32.5 percent among Saudi females during the fourth quarter.
The bulletin’s information is derived from labor force survey estimates and market data from bodies such as the Ministry of Labor and Social Development and the Ministry of Civil Service. 
The bulletin indicated that the total number of Saudi employees in the Kingdom has reached 3,111,199. 
It also showed that the number of Saudis seeking work reached 970,229 during the forth quarter, according to data from government agencies’ administrative records.