(Dr. Saleh A AlNassar)
The general statistics report that has been created at the Ministry of Economy and Planning( Safar, 1429H) has highlighted that the number of jobless amongst the youth has reached the approximate rate of around 400,000 and that 46.8% of the jobless youth can be found in the 20 to 24 years old age bracket. This is the highest rate compared to the 25- 29 years old age group which is 36%. As for females the rate of joblessness has reached 45.2% for the 25 to 29 year old age group followed by the 20 to 24 years olds who have a 42% overall rate for jobless females.
What has become significant in that the 18 t o 24 year old age group, males and females represent an important human resource with regards to adding value to the current job market. This group is experiencing a situation that now needs to be addressed quickly in order to enable them to move forward in their lives and create a positive atmosphere with their parents and in the communities that they live. At this sensitive age, the youth are at the beginning stage of their working life after completing their formal education and also many of them have participated in various training courses for job entry and progression. They are also at the beginning of their social life and have to accept more family commitments and responsibilities. Moreover, they have become the embodiment of the new work ethic in Saudi society together with other productive factors they now constitute the backbone of social and economic growth within the society.
Getting a suitable job with opportunities for progression has become the main driver for many young people wanting to make a positive start in their working lives. However, these hopes have been thwarted by facing unemployment upon leaving formal education. Many young people are very eager and keen to work, but have been unable to find a job that allows them to acquire a salary and job progression that will meet their needs. However, the job market is suffering from a low uptake of young people because many of them have not achieved good educational outcomes upon leaving formal education. The General Education System in the Kingdom does not prepare the youth skills wise and also does not give them the intellectual and psychological tools to work directly within the private sector. This is turn leads to recruiting expatriates to fulfill these roles, thereby increasing the rate of joblessness amongst the youth. Moreover, salaries within the private sector can be low and unattractive because of performance related pay as the sector is profit orientated and the Kingdom is still getting use to this way of how people earn their living within this sector as opposed to the public sector which is more stable.
Joblessness is now becoming a matter of concern amongst the youth. Unfortunately with the inflexible job market, the low level of quality within education, the weak compatibility of students training tailored to the job markets needs, including the bureaucratic hindrances to develop private investment have all directly or indirectly contributed to the failure of the concerted efforts to try and mobilize the youth into positive and progressive career pathways and increased economic and social growth. This has made the youth easy prey to poverty and social exclusion (but not enslavement) lower salaries and lack of benefits. Also owning to the harsh competition for available jobs, many young people who do get jobs end up doing low task duties and roles that require little skill are become liable to exploitation by their employers and risk losing job security.
The social issues of joblessness amongst the youth have created negative repercussions and feelings amongst them which has resulted in feelings of injustice, prejudice and further marginalization which has pushed them into showing feelings of apathy and negative behavioral tendencies. Joblessness also gives rise to groups that are likely to be recruited for social turmoil in cases of economic crisis which can create tremendous social damage. Moreover, joblessness may also be correlated with the rate of various types of crime, the citizen's exclusion from their social environment, and the young person's incapacity to establish solidarity within the communities that they live. These factors also cause late marriages amongst these people and in a delay of forming a productive family. This in turn also leads them to lose a golden opportunity to profit from one of the best investments in the country which is the social investment of the youth's minds and their hands.