80% Saudis prefer govt jobs

DAMMAM: At least 26 percent of Saudis in Riyadh believe that the rising graph of unemployment in the country is due to a lack of appropriate job opportunities.

A recent study by Dr. Nawal Al-Harbi on the Riyadh workforce, published by the Naif University for Security Sciences, said that 18 percent of them further believe the problem was due to insufficient experiences on the part of job seeking youths. Nepotism too was also blamed, as 22 percent of those surveyed confirmed.
The wide-ranging study included those 19 percent who said unemployment led to a lack of independence, while 18 percent believed that it led to personal deviations from society; 13 percent cite poverty as the major outcome.
Eighty percent of the unemployed persons would prefer working in the government sector, while 20 percent would prefer jobs in the private sector, the survey found.
The reasons for preferring the government sector predominantly related to job security, fewer working hours and longer annual holidays.
The survey revealed 37 of the sample group had never worked before, while 63 percent had some work experience. It revealed that among those who had worked previously but are not unemployed, the main reason behind this change was due to the small salaries, as stated by 47.2 percent of the sample.
Meanwhile, 12 percent said it was because of long working hours and non-suitable work. Just over two percent said it was because of the long distance required for them to travel to work, while 4.5 percent said it was mostly because many headquarters are located outside the city. In addition, 8.5 percent said that they do not currently work due to a lack of experience, 3.5 percent said it was because there was no means of transportation for them, and 15.5 percent said it was because of ‘other’ reasons.
The unemployment is a social crisis experienced widely within Saudi Arabia, despite that the fact that the country doesn’t suffer from a dire lack of productive industries and elements.
The Kingdom previously tried to decrease unemployment through a number of programs, such as Hafiz, Nitaqat, Hadaf and Taqat. The government has also exerted a lot of effort to combat unemployment through the establishment of the King Fahad Center for employment under the supervision and management of the Human Resource Development Fund. This initiative was designed to support efforts that facilitate the employment of Saudis in the private sector and sought to implement procedures to ration foreign recruitment and provide more room for national employment.
In a related development, Abdul Munim Al-Shahri, undersecretary for the Ministry of Labor, revealed a plan recently to provide transportation for female employees with token prices to support the feminization process.
This came during the opening of a center to support female work in Jazan. This center aims to benefit from agreements to support productive families in various activities, especially those related to nationalization in the field of maintaining mbile phones, by providing investment opportunities for these families.
He said the plan includes the provision of transportation for women working in commercial stores by agreeing with owners of these stores beforehand as a way to attract more women to the positions. He said that difficult transportation is one of the major obstacles that prevents women from working.