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Saudi Arabia’s Unemployment Drops to Under 12%

Saudi unemployment rate drops in the last government survey for Q1 2020, Asharq Al-Awsat
Saudi unemployment rate drops in the last government survey for Q1 2020, Asharq Al-Awsat
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Saudi Arabia’s Unemployment Drops to Under 12%

Saudi unemployment rate drops in the last government survey for Q1 2020, Asharq Al-Awsat
Saudi unemployment rate drops in the last government survey for Q1 2020, Asharq Al-Awsat

The unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia fell marginally in the first quarter of the current fiscal year when compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, a General Authority for Statistics (GaStat) report has said.

It confirmed, however, that the data do not reflect the ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic.

It said the unemployment rate decreased from 12.0% to 11.8% during the mentioned period. At the same time, unemployment rate among females reached 28.2%, a drop of 2.6 percentage points.

The unemployment rate for men (aged 15 years and above) reached 5.6%, with an increase of 0.7 percentage points, the report said.

The labor force participation rate for the total population (aged 15 years and above) increased by 1.8 percentage points compared to Q1 of 2019, reaching 58.2%.

Labor force participation for men was 80.4%, while the rate of participation of women in the Labor force was 25.4%, data showed, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

The released data do not reflect the impact of the COVID-19 crisis as they were collected early in the first quarter. The total unemployment rate stood at 5.7% in Q1 this year.

Based on the administrative data, Saudi and non-Saudi employees amounted to 13.63 million individuals. The total number of Saudi employees (males and females) reached 3.2 million individuals, 2.06 million Saudi men and 1.13 Saudi females, the report said.

The participation rate in the labor force for Saudis (aged 15 years and above) fell by 0.5 percentage points to 46.2% compared to Q1 2020. The Saudi male participation rate in the labor force fell by 0.8 percentage points from the previous quarter, reaching 65.8%, while the Saudi female participation rate fell by 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter, reaching 25.9%.

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Anger Against Trump Is Forecast to Cost the US International Visitors 

Replicas of the Statue of Liberty are displayed for sale in a tourist shop in lower Manhattan on March 28, 2025, in New York City. (AFP)
Replicas of the Statue of Liberty are displayed for sale in a tourist shop in lower Manhattan on March 28, 2025, in New York City. (AFP)
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Anger Against Trump Is Forecast to Cost the US International Visitors 

Replicas of the Statue of Liberty are displayed for sale in a tourist shop in lower Manhattan on March 28, 2025, in New York City. (AFP)
Replicas of the Statue of Liberty are displayed for sale in a tourist shop in lower Manhattan on March 28, 2025, in New York City. (AFP)

Anger over the Trump administration’s tariffs and rhetoric will likely cause international travel to the US to fall even further than expected this year, an influential travel forecasting company said Tuesday.

Tourism Economics said it expects the number of people arriving in the US from abroad to decline by 9.4% this year. That’s almost twice the 5% drop the company forecast at the end of February.

At the beginning of the year, Tourism Economics predicted a booming year for international travel to the US, with visits up 9% from 2024.

But Tourism Economics President Adam Sacks said high-profile lockups of European tourists at the US border in recent weeks have chilled international travelers. Potential visitors have also been angered by tariffs, Trump's stance toward Canada and Greenland, and his heated White House exchange with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“With each policy development, each rhetorical missive, we’re just seeing unforced error after unforced error in the administration,” Sacks said. “It has a direct impact on international travel to the US.”

The decline will have consequences for airlines, hotels, national parks and other sites frequented by tourists.

Tourism Economics expects travel from Canada to plummet 20% this year, a decline that will be acutely felt in border states like New York and Michigan but also popular tourist destinations like California, Nevada and Florida.

The US Travel Association, a trade group, has also warned about Canadians staying away. Even a 10% reduction in travel from Canada could mean 2.0 million fewer visits, $2.1 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses, the group said in February.

Other travel-related companies have noted worrying signs. At its annual shareholder meeting on Monday, Air Canada said bookings to the US were down 10% for the April-September period compared to the same period a year ago.

Sacks said he now expects foreign visitors to spend $9 billion less in the US compared to 2024, when international tourism to the country rose 9.1%.

“The irony is that the tariffs are being put in place to help right the trade deficit, but they're harming the trade balance by causing fewer international travelers to come and spend money here,” Sacks said.

Sacks said international arrivals had been getting close to returning to 2019 numbers, before the coronavirus pandemic halted most travel. Now he thinks they won't get back to that level until 2029.