Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Kingdom's private sector last year employed as many as 10,083 job seekers, who represented less than 5.9 percent of a total of more than 171,000 Saudi men and women looking for jobs, the Arabic daily Al-Watan reported on Wednesday quoting statistics from the Human Resources Development Fund (Hadaf).

The fund said 171,228 job seekers were registered in the Ministry of Labor and Social Development's Taqat electronic gate for employment.

Hadaf estimated the active vacancies last year to be more than 695,000.

The fund said the registered job seekers consisted of 69,358 men and 101,870 women.

It said there were 88,786 job advertisements last year. An average of 16,000 Saudi men and women browse the ministry's Taqat e-gate, which provides about 130 services to job seekers.