A recently-released Jadwa Investment report on the Saudi labor market highlights gains made in edging down the Saudi unemployment rate, especially for women and youth in the Kingdom.
According to Jadwa, The latest General Authority for Statistics (GaStat) labor market release for Q1 2019 shows that unemployment declined to 12.5 percent, reaching its lowest rate since Q4 2016.
Graphic via Jadwa Investment.
Total youth unemployment (20-24 years old) continued to decline, from 36.6 percent in Q4 2018 to 36.3 percent in Q1 2019, helped by a significant drop in female youth unemployment.
Female labor force participation continued to rise, reaching 20.5 percent in Q1 2019, up from 20.2 percent in Q4 2018.
The data shows that the total number of foreigners in the Saudi labor market declined by around 1.8 million since the start of 2017, with around 185 thousand workers leaving the market during Q1 2019.
[Click here to read the full report from Jadwa Investment] [Arabic]
