Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, said that he believes that unemployment in the Kingdom will start to decline next year.
In a lengthy interview with Bloomberg published on Friday, he said that it will start to decline from 2019 “until we reach 7 percent in 2030 as targeted in the Kingdom’s Vision.”
“If you see the male unemployment rate, it’s between 5 to 6 percent, which is almost close to normal. But if you look at the female unemployment rate, it’s above 20 percent.
“Now we have a lot of programs to welcome those demands, and that will clarify a lot of numbers and we believe job creation will start from 2019, maybe late 2018.”
On government spending on employment, he said: “The number that we look at in the government is how much we spend for employees in the government budget. In 2015-16, it’s almost 50 percent of our budget is employee salaries and etcetera. Today, it’s 42 percent. In 2020, I believe it will be below 40 percent. And the main target in 2030 is to be around 30 percent of government spending on government employment.
“Of course, the Saudi Arabian government still needs to create a lot of jobs because of the needs in the country, in the army, in the security agencies, in education – especially education – and also in other sectors that are being newly created in sports and different areas. The economy, the country, the people, need these services, so of course we’ll create these jobs.
“And we believe that the job creation in the private sector will also grow with time,” Prince Mohammed said.
He continued: “Today we have a good percentage. I believe it’s almost 50 percent of government employees and non-government employees.”
“But if you look at the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, it’s a totally different number. So today we are in a good situation. I believe in 2030 it will be lower than that. If you watch the next two years, you will see that we are going in the right direction, but it wouldn’t happen today.”
Asked if the Ritz Carlton arrests affected investor confidence, Prince Mohammed replied: “It created a lot of rumors, but I don’t believe that it affected that.
“At the end of the second quarter of 2018, the net foreign investment in the Saudi stock market increased by 40.4% compared to the same period of 2017,” he added.
Asked about how much has been transferred from the Ritz arrests, he stated: “I’m not sure about the number but I believe it’s something above $35 billion as of today. We think it will complete in the next maybe two years. Forty percent of the current number is being transferred in cash and sixty percent is mostly assets.
“The cash goes to the treasury. Two years from now and the case will be totally closed,” he said, while revealing that only eight people were still being detained.
“They are with their lawyers and facing the system that we have in Saudi Arabia,” he stressed.
