Reiterating the Kingdom’s COVID-19 recovery on all fronts, the Saudi General Authority for Statistics (SGAS) has revealed positive unemployment numbers for the third quarter of 2020.
The authority reported that the unemployment rate among Saudi citizens decreased to 14.9 percent in the third quarter of 2020. The figure was a slight improvement when compared to the second quarter of 2020 where the rate was recorded at 15.4 percent. It was still quite high when the same is compared to the 11.8 percent recorded in the first quarter of 2020.
Regional dailies have reported that while the unemployment rate among males was recorded to be at 7.9 percent, the female unemployment rate was found to be considerably higher at 30.2 percent in the third quarter of 2020.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate among all residents (15 years and above) saw a drop of 0.5 percent (8.5 percent from 9 percent) by the end of Q3 2020.
Employment in Numbers
The total number of employed persons across the Kingdom stood at 13.46 million in Q3 2020 where males contributed to 82 percent (10.97 million) of the total labor force and females represented 18 percent (2.49 million).
While expatriate employees represented 75.8 percent of the total workforce (10.20 million), Saudi nationals accounted for 24.1 percent (or 3.25 million) of employees in the country.
Employment Breakup
While 63.2 percent (8.50 million) of the total Saudi Arabian labor force are subject to the regulations of the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI), 9.4 percent are subject to the rules of the Civil Service.
27.3 percent of the total Saudi labor force are domestic workers.
