Essa Al-Hulyan

Okaz

IF we review the map of Saudis working in the private sector and who are registered with the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) and classify them by economic activities, we will find that commerce absorbed 22.8 percent of Saudis, followed by the construction sector at 21.9 percent, social services at 20.2 percent, finance, insurance and real estate at 11.26 percent, oil and mining at 5.41 percent, postal services and communications at 4.5 percent, electricity, gas and water at 2.54 percent and lastly transformative industry at 1.38 percent.

These numbers give a true picture on the role of each economic activity in fighting unemployment and creating job opportunities for Saudis. From these figures, we can find that commerce, construction and real estate account for about half of the Saudi workers in the private sector. The main economic activities like oil, mining, gas, electricity, transformative industry and agriculture constitute only 10 percent of the total opportunities in the Saudi job market. Despite the huge government investment in these activities, they are not providing enough jobs.

We need to review these figures and evaluate the role of each economic activity and reorganize the sectors in accordance with the job market indicators, as it is considered one of the most important criteria for job creation.

Before we talk about the percentage of unemployment in the country and the percentage of those entering the job market compared with the job opportunities generated and the gap that is growing between the two numbers, we need to plan new strategies in these sectors as well as the national investment programs. Generating new job opportunities should be one of the main criteria while evaluating the returns on national investment.