Despite recent reforms, it still provides economic subsidies especially to low-wage earners and to the poor. For example, in , the government gave SAR 50 billion to citizens to offset the rising cost of living.
Also, government employees 1. Until recently, the cost of living in the kingdom was quite low. However, in the last 5 years, supermarket prices have almost doubled. Additionally, the cost of household electricity, fuel, and energy bills have quadrupled with the ending of government subsidies.
As of , government-run insurance programs for the unemployed ensure that redundant workers under the age of 59 get one full year of unemployment benefits. However, in , the Citizens Account Program was introduced to replace halted government subsidies and provide a basic monthly income for than 13 million poor Saudis as a way to reduce the rate of poverty.
Science Direct. Jobs for Saudis programs have been in existence since the s. However, they met with very limited success. In , the Saudi government started a new program called Nitiqaat. Its goal is to provide jobs for as many Saudi nationals as possible.
Today, the scheme obliges private companies to replace foreign workers with Saudi citizens. Nitiqaat is one of the main goals of the Vision reform program. Platinum and the 3 Green category companies can freely use Labor Ministry Services and support because they comply with Saudization quotas.
They are denied essential government services but increasingly are provided government support to improve their status and to enable them to become Green or Platinum. So far, Nitiqaat has made only a small dent in the Saudi unemployment figures. Expat numbers are falling by , foreign workers every quarter. However, in , Saudi unemployment was high; In , it rose to By late , it was down to Nitiqaat is providing jobs but new employees are suffering from long work hours, low benefits, and pay.
Small and medium-sized companies who previously were easily able to afford the low salaries of efficient foreign workers today cannot match the higher salaries and demands of a new Saudi labor force unwilling to do so much more for what they argue is so little in return.
They are work positions that private companies create to employ Saudi nationals in name only to employees who are neither capable nor interested in performing the arduous work duties. Red companies create the so-called fake jobs to meet Saudization quotas, graduate out of the Red non-compliant category, and gain access to essential Labor office services.
Astonishingly for decades, 1 liter of petrol SAR. All that ended suddenly in when prices at the gas pump tripled for domestic Octane 95 SR 1. Today, there is still a major housing shortage for Saudis-poor and rich. As in many countries today, young Saudi nationals cannot afford to buy a home or even get home building loans. Demand for housing, Eskan Portal especially in 10 major urban areas is 1. There are millions of poorer Saudi families.
Poverty strongly correlates with low education since low-income families are unable to send their children to private schools where math and science scores are significantly higher. Privately educated children, compared with government school children, easily get admission into universities and into the specializations that promise well-paid employment after graduation.
As subsidies continue to be cut and prices for food, energy, and fuel rise, the ways to rise out of poverty in Saudi Arabia must continually be addressed. They are the richest royal family in the world and one of the wealthiest in the entire world. General Authority for Statistics -stats. Vision Saudi Government Housing Program- vision Saudi Arabia has the 18th-largest annual GDP when compared to other nations.
But when compared to the annual gross domestic product of US states, the Saudi economy is smaller in terms of overall annual dollars than the state of Pennsylvania's. And Pennsylvania ranks sixth in terms of state GDP. While often perceived as the most wealthy nation in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is actually fourth in terms of per capita wealth, behind Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. In , the kingdom came in at No.
The Al Marai dairy farm in Saudi Arabia is the largest milk-producing dairy on the planet. Approximately 95, milking cows are kept there, and the dairy produces nearly 1 billion liters of milk each day. The Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia holds some 75 billion barrels of oil, which would be enough to fill more than 4,, Olympic swimming pools. For reference, those pools hold , gallons of fluid when filled to regulation limits. The Saudi oil and gas industries are dominated by foreign workers, with some 6 million foreign nationals employed in the kingdom.
Even as foreigners flock to the oil and gas fields and refineries of Saudi Arabia, its citizens are facing chronic employment shortfalls. In , the unemployment rate hit The new member Sovereign Council, includes civilians but none from the political coalition that had been sharing power with the military since But fiscal austerity to contain a yawning deficit has slowed investment, and the coronavirus crisis in pushed unemployment up to a record Would you like to comment on this article or view other readers' comments?
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