Al-Watan newspaper

One day a few years ago, I was in my car when I passed my neighbor’s 20-year-old son who was in his car. His radio was on very loud. I apologized to my Pakistani driver for his behavior, saying, “He must feel depressed because he is jobless.” My driver responded saying, “He’s not jobless, he’s lazy. If he bought water bottles and sold them on the street, he could make SR3,000 a month.”

I remembered this incident when reading a tweet by economic expert Dr. Ehsan Bohlaiqa. He tweeted that “Saudis should work hard to make the national economy strong again and control the labor market. Countless non-Saudi workers have entered the Kingdom almost broke, worked hard and left for their country with a lot of money. Our labor market is rich. If we want to spend more money, we should work hard.”

I do not understand the mentality of some Saudi youth. Why do they only search for public sector jobs when they could start businesses and earn lots of money? Strangely enough, even when some Saudi youth decide to enter the market as investors, they do so by partnering with non-Saudis.

These businesses are owned by Saudis but run by non-Saudis with the Saudi investors being given a portion of the profits at the end of each month. I also do not understand why a Saudi would agree to take SR2,000 every month when the real income of businesses run by expatriate workers could reach thousands of Saudi riyals?

Do Saudi youth love public sector jobs because they are not required to put in a lot of effort? To be successful in a public sector job, all an employee has to do is build good relations with his manager and he will be fine. There are no procedures in place to measure the performance of an employee on a regular basis. That is perhaps why a young Saudi man or woman prefers being employed in the public sector.

A UK study has shown that people who entered the labor market at a young age, especially as teenagers, were generally eager in their jobs. These results prove that encouraging school students to work during holidays and weekends enhances their keenness to work. Some UK universities give awards based on the number of working hours completed by students. You will see thousands of teenagers wiping tables at restaurants, washing cars at car washes, waiting on tables, etc. in the UK. They do so to widen their knowledge and earn extra income.

We should encourage businesses and restaurants in the Kingdom to employ students and pay them well. In this way, we will be able to reduce our dependency on expatriate workers and see unemployment rates decrease. More importantly, it will put an end to the social stigma associated with such jobs.