Al-Jazirah newspaper

In the past, several governmental and private organizations announced training programs for young people that would eventually lead to employment. The announcements were made to motivate young Saudis to apply. However, once the programs ended it became clear that these groups had given these young people false hopes. Most of them did not even give the participants work experience certificates. Is there any authority that is responsible for ensuring that institutions commit to what they announce?

There is one such organization that intervened, and that was the Ministry of Labor and Social Development that declared that the bodies that manipulated the hopes of young people in this way would be severely punished. The same goes for false employment adverts that state that employers are eager to implement the Saudization process yet complicate matters when young Saudis apply, making it impossible for them to secure jobs.

Job seekers find these advertisements confusing. For example, there might be several data entry job adverts that consist of the same tasks but vary in the conditions of acceptance. Some companies want individuals with high qualifications, whereas others want employees with medium qualifications and less experience. The situation is chaotic. It is clear that matters are not uniform across both the government and private sectors. Employers should give information that is consistent.

The Saudization of different sectors needs to be done in a highly systematic fashion. An official website should be set up that lists all available career opportunities. The job specifications could be uniform and a system needs to be in place to inform job seekers with suitable qualifications.

We could decrease youth unemployment if we could systemize processes, deal with these false employment adverts, unify job specifications and create a website that publishes actual employment adverts. Doing this would help thousands of people find suitable jobs.