Yousef Al-Mohaimeed

Al-Jazirah

There is no country on the face of this earth that does not have various political, economic or social issues. The magnitude of these issues differ from one country to another. It may also differ in the same country from time to time.



There is nothing wrong when we admit openly that we have issues in the fields of education, health and housing. It will not be shameful for us to discover that there is a big mistake in the delivery of our education system. It is not a shameful thing to know that a number of patients do not have sufficient beds in hospitals or in intensive care units in times of emergency.



It is not a shameful thing to see a Saudi who is above 40 and does not own his own house in his own country. The shameful thing, however, is to know and keep silent, to know and ignore, to know and not move to correct our mistakes and shortcomings.



It is shameful not to analyze our crises to resolve them or at least reduce their impact. Regardless, all these issues in the fields of education, health and housing do not mean much when compared to the problem of unemployment.



The official report of the Ministry of Civil Service reveals that more than 700,000 Saudis have applied for government jobs. They have applied through the ministry's electronic gate “Jadarah 3.”



The painful thing is that about 75 percent of them are women, meaning that the rate of unemployment among the weaker sex is still very high. It is also painful to note that 149 of these women job applicants are holders of PhD degrees, 8,474 master's degrees and 575,245 holders of bachelor’s degrees.



Have we reached a stage of development where the holders of PhD and master's degrees are unable to find jobs in the public sector? The legitimate question here is, why are all these large numbers are only looking for government jobs?



What is the stand of private sector, which has depleted the country's wealth, regarding these jobless citizens? Why can't the private sector make use of these people and their high qualifications instead of the thousands of expatriates the sector is recruiting from all over the world?



The ministry's report said more than 270,000 applicants are graduates of the colleges of social sciences and public administration. It also said about 105,000 are graduates of Shariah colleges.



What is the use of these specializations if the graduates cannot find jobs? Where do these people go when the labor market says no to them? Why can't we carefully study the labor market needs and design our educational strategy accordingly?



While we support the rapid moves being made to organize our domestic affairs, we really need to put an end to the drastic issue of joblessness. We have to reduce the rate of unemployment, especially among women.



A man who cannot find a job is liable to know hunger and despair. In this case he or she will be an element for a dormant political, economic or social crisis. It is not enough to deal with the issue of unemployment through individual solutions on social media. We have to work seriously to end the problem of joblessness or at least reduce its magnitude. We have to do this so we can occupy a good position in the world considering the rate of unemployment.