A recent economic report highlighted reform indicators in Saudi Arabia three years after the launch of Saudi Vision 2030.
The report pointed out that the unemployment rate among women dropped to 31.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, while 64,000 Saudis were employed over the same period.
The General Authority for Statistics (GaStat) labor market statistics for the first quarter - cited by Jadwa Investment - showed that unemployment declined to 12.5 percent, reaching its lowest rate since the fourth quarter of 2016.
Total youth unemployment - covering those aged 20-24 years - also continued to decline, from 36.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018 to 36.3 percent in the first quarter of 2019, helped by a significant drop in female youth unemployment, according to the report.
The report also revealed that the total number of foreigners in the Saudi labor market declined by around 1.8 million since the start of 2017, with around 185,000 workers leaving the market during the first quarter.
Jadwa added that in the first quarter of 2019, the Ministry of Labor announced the employment of 64,000 Saudis through a number of agreements with public and private entities, which is equal to 8 percent of estimated total unemployed persons.
