Die Verringerung der Arbeitslosenrate in Saudi-Arabien ist die Grundlage und gleichzeitig die große Herausforderung der Reformpläne der Vision 2030 für das Königreich. Ziele der Vision sind die Integration von Saudis in die Arbeitswelt sowie der Erwerb von Kompetenzen für eine diversifizierte private Wirtschaft.
One firm step to realizing Vision 2030
Their heads bowed, young Saudi men concentrate on exam papers in a workshop
filled with industrial machines that will help them earn a living.
The
students at the Higher Institute for Plastics Fabrication (HIPF) learn to
manufacture plastic bags, pipes, bottles and other products, skills they
immediately put to work in what the government says is a unique
model.
Reducing the Kingdom's high unemployment rate is a
foundation - and major challenge - of the government's wide-ranging
Vision 2030 reform plan unveiled in April.
It aims not only to bring more
Saudis into the workforce but also to give them vocational skills needed for a
diversified private sector.
The HIPF and similar institutes are a focus
of the effort to transform Saudi Arabia's labor force, ending decades of
over-reliance on oil exports to strengthen the Kingdom's industrial
base.
The National Transformation Program (NTP), which sets five-year
targets for implementing the Vision, calls for Saudi unemployment to be cut from
11.6 percent to nine percent by 2020.
More than half of Saudis are under
25 but the International Monetary Fund last year noted "very high and rising"
youth unemployment which it said must be tackled urgently.
Experts say
doing so will be a major challenge, with many Saudis long accustomed to a
bloated public sector, a heavily subsidized economy and a lack of incentives to
work.
It is an attitude reflected in young Saudis like Hadi Al-Harbi, an
18-year-old ex-security guard in Makkah, who never finished middle school but
would like to work again — as long as the job "is comfortable and with a good
salary."
More than 6.5 million foreigners were employed last year in the
Kingdom, whose Saudi population is just over 21 million.
Expatriates do
everything from management to cleaning the streets and waiting on tables, in a
society where many locals are reluctant to take jobs they consider menial.
Almost twice as many Saudis are employed in the public sector, where hours are
shorter and leave longer, than in private firms.
By 2020 the government
aims to cut its payroll to 40 percent of the budget from 45 percent, while
seeking to foster "a culture of high performance" among all workers in the
country. Even in the private sector, some Saudis have jobs only on paper,
recruited to help companies win incentives - such as a greater ability to
renew visas - or avoid sanctions set up as part of the government's effort to
get more nationals employed.
Another goal of the NTP is to expand the
workforce's number of women, whose job opportunities were traditionally
restricted in a conservative society.
The jobless rate for Saudi women
rose slightly last year to 33.8 percent. The figure was nearly twice as high for
women in their 20s, according to Jadwa Investment.
"In our culture it was
hard for us to go to work or try to find our own way. It was not allowed," says
Saleema Shaker Al-Malki, 30, a Riyadh mother of three who has never had a job.
She hopes the NTP can help her find suitable work "so that I can escape from the
routine life... and achieve my dreams."
Improved education is a focus of
the Vision 2030 plan, which calls for expanded vocational training and "rigorous
standards" in basic learning.
The HIPF plastics institute is among the
most advanced of about 240 schools run by the government's Technical and
Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC).
Some, like the HIPF, are
partnerships between the TVTC and industry firms that run them. The TVTC says
the approach is unique because students receive a job as well as training, which
is conducted in English.
"From Day One of training" the newly arrived
students, HIPF is fulfilling Vision 2030's goal of employment, said Khaled
Al-Ghefaili, the school's executive director.
Each day starts with
calisthenics and an inspection of students' uniforms, which helps instill
"discipline" and a strong work ethic, Al-Ghefaili says at the school in an
industrial district in Riyadh.
The course concludes with a job placement
before graduates continue to full-time employment.
Abdullah Al-Aameri,
23, who will graduate later this year, says that aside from working in the
industry many fellow students also hope to open their own plastic businesses.
"So they will start their own jobs and give jobs to others," Aameri
says.
Established in 2007, the HIPF has graduated more than 1,000 young
men, about 70 percent of whom are still employed in the private
sector.
Al-Ghefaili says he is satisfied "to some extent" with that
record, given that Kingdom's plastics sector has for decades relied on low-paid
expatriates.
To succeed further, he said, the industry must evolve from a
focus on consumer goods to more complex "higher value" production, which would
broaden job opportunities. "To do the transition is not easy," he says.