Al-Madina daily

A CITIZEN tweeted the other day. It said: “Jubail and Dhiba Port has placed a job announcement in an Indian newspaper for the following openings: Fire Squad Leader, Fire Station Director, Firemen, Safety Instructor and Pump Technician. These jobs are offered to non-Saudis although unemployment is high among Saudi youth.”

He is right. Saudis are more entitled than any one else to these jobs. The question that poses itself is: Do we really have Saudi youth who are specialized in the required fields and can fill the above positions, which do not strike any interest for most Saudis?

But the real question and the more important one is why have Saudi youth not been trained to fill such positions over the past years? For example, jobs at airports should only be offered to trustworthy people.

I agree that private sector companies should not be treated as charity for sheltering Saudis. After all, they are businesses that seek to reduce expenditure and operational costs and rely more on technology to earn more revenue. This is the reason why they exist in the market: profits. However, some companies dismiss Saudis using different pretexts. Recently, a group of Saudi employees were fired by Dammam Airports Company because a foreign company would run the facilities.

In fact, 88% of jobs created in 2015, totaling 416,000, were taken by non-Saudis because the majority of jobs created did not spark the interest of Saudi youth or there are no Saudis who are specialized in them. To increase Saudization, we should train Saudis in the jobs on demand.

The last question is: Has the Ministry of Labor statistics on the number of jobless persons, social status, category?