43% of Saudi youth are jobless

43% of Saudi youth are jobless.Unemployment rose 20% among Saudi youth in 2009.Saudi Arabia is suffering from a high unemployment rate among young men as more than 43 per cent of citizens aged between 20 and 24 years are unemployed, according to government figures.The rate at the end of 2009 was higher than in 2008 despite an ongoing drive by the world’s oil powerhouse to find jobs for its fast-growing nationals and dispose of hundreds of thousands of expatriate workers who dominate the private sector.The figures by the government statistics and information centre showed nearly 43.2 per cent of the Saudi males and females aged 20-24 years were unemployed at the end of 2009, nearly 20 per cent above the 2008 rate.The report, published in Saudi newspapers this week, showed more than 450,000 Saudi nationals of all ages were jobless last year.“This comes at a time when nearly one million labour visas for foreign workers were issued last year,” the report said. “The private sector continued a drive to import foreign labour although nearly 111,000 Saudis were looking for jobs.”A breakdown showed nearly 300,000 of those visas were issued in the capital Riyadh while 199,000 were in the eastern province and 185,000 in Makkah.Around 49 per cent of the visas were for jobs in the construction sector while nearly 12 per cent were for fishing and farming, 11 per cent for trade, eight per cent for the manufacturing sector and six per cent for communication.The private sector’s excuse for its heavy reliance on foreign workers is that the Saudi labour is characterized by low productivity and negligence…but of course this is an incorrect accusation,” said Hamza al Salim, a university economics professor in Riyadh. “The real reason is that the foreign labour is cheaper…this practice is aggravating the joblessness problem and draining the country’s financial resources since the expatriates remit most of their money abroad.”Hmmmm.....Cheap labor by foreigners is the reason,perhaps someone should tel Obama about it?Read the full story here.