Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The number of Saudi citizens, who joined the local labor market for the first time, reached 16,500 during the last month of June, according to the labor market bulletin for the first quarter of 2024, released by the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT).

The total number of citizens working in the private sector during the month of June exceeded 2.3 million, and these include 1.4 million men and 957000 women. The total number of expatriates working in the private sector reached about 9 million, and these included 8.7 million men and 376,000 women.

The National Labor Observatory (NLO) released on Wednesday a detailed publication with figures of private sector workers in the Saudi labor market for the last month. The GASTAT report showed that unemployment rate of all Saudis maintained a steady decline, after recording a decline to 7.6 percent in the first quarter of 2024 compared to 7.8 percent during the fourth quarter of 2023. This rate is little more than the Vision 2030 target of 7 Percent.

The total number of workers in the private sector until the end of May reached about 11.3 million. Among these, the total number of citizens accounted for 2.3 million, of which the number of males reached 1.3 million, while the number of females exceeded 971000.

At the same time, the total number of expatriates working in the private sector was about 9 million, including 8.6 million men and 371000 women. The report reviewed the net growth in citizens’ jobs for the month of May when 30,800 joined the private sector for the first time.