Abdullah Al-Jamili
A group of medical students from King Abdulaziz University described the 8th Medical Career Day as useless. No serious job opportunities were advertised during the event, which seems to have become a way of promoting participating companies and hospitals.
Career fairs like this, which are organized by universities or chambers of commerce and industry, do not offer Saudi youth job opportunities. Even if there are job opportunities, they are difficult to take advantage of because of the extremely difficult requirements. What really makes one experience mixed feelings of anger and laughter is that expatriate workers are the ones at these fairs promoting vacancies to Saudi candidates.
Speaking of expatriate workers, we have more than 1.5 million unemployed Saudis whereas the number of expatriate workers in our country has reached nine million. These expatriate workers have 42 percent of the jobs in most sectors. This is solid proof that Saudization programs have failed despite the great efforts exerted by the concerned authorities to make them succeed.
Full and quick Saudization can be achieved by eradicating fake Saudization practices that are rampant in some companies. These companies get around the system so that they are not fined or penalized by the Ministry of Labor or have their electronic services suspended. Furthermore, the current percentages of Saudization may not be accurate as unemployment rates continue to rise.
We need to set up a data bank for private sector jobs that should be linked to the Commission of Job Creation and Anti-Unemployment. The commission was established by the Cabinet last year with a view to combating rising unemployment among the nation’s youth. Private sector companies should post vacancies in the data bank. The right candidates who have the appropriate academic qualifications and experience will be selected to fill the vacancies.
