The unemployment rate among Saudis has dropped to 12.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to the General Authority for Statistics (GAStat)’s Q4-18 report on the labor market.
A quarterly bulletin indicated a slight improvement in the rate, which stood at 12.8 percent in the third quarter of last year.
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, the Ministry of Civil Service, the General Organization for Social Insurance, the Human Resources Development Fund and the National Information Center.
The unemployment rate among Saudi males stood at 6.6 percent compared to 32.5 percent among Saudi females during the fourth quarter.
Results of the survey showed that the total Saudi economic participation rate (15) years and above for Q4 2018 was 42 percent. That for females was 20.2 percent while males participation was 63 percent.
In addition, the total unemployment rate for (15) years and above stabilized at six percent in the fourth quarter 2018.
The report explained that there are 3,111,199 male and female Saudi workers.
GAStat explained that job seekers registered in the administrative records are not subject to the international unemployment criteria and approved by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
For this reason, not all of them are considered to be unemployed.
As a result, not every job seeker is unemployed as they might be seeking a job but has a job or is self-employed and is not registered in the government records.
According to GAStat, job seekers are those who are registered in e-gates searching for jobs at the Ministry of Civil Service and at the Human Resources Development Fund’s Taqat program.
