Editing Economy of Saudi Arabia (section)

==Employment==
{{further|Saudization|Foreign workers in Saudi Arabia}}

As of 2008, roughly two-thirds of workers employed in Saudi Arabia were foreigners, and in the private sector the proportion was approximately 90%.<ref name=house-157>{{cite book|author=House, Karen Elliott|title=On Saudi Arabia : Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future| publisher=Knopf|year=2012|page=157}}</ref> In January 2014, the Saudi government claimed it had lowered the 90% rate, doubling the number of Saudi citizens working in the private sector to 1.5&nbsp;million (compared to 10 million foreign expatriates working in the kingdom).<ref name=McDowall/>

According to [[Reuters]], economists "estimate only 30–40 percent of working-age Saudis hold jobs or actively seek work", although the official unemployment rate is only around 12 percent. Most Saudis with jobs are employed by the government, but the International Monetary Fund has warned that the government cannot support such a large payroll in the long term.<ref name=McDowall>{{cite news|last=McDowall|first=Angus|title=Saudi Arabia doubles private-sector jobs in 30-month period|url=http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/2014/01/20/Saudi-Arabiya-doubles-number-of-citizens-in-private-sector-jobs.html|access-date=12 May 2014|newspaper=Reuters|date=19 January 2014|archive-date=18 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180918090907/http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/2014/01/20/Saudi-Arabiya-doubles-number-of-citizens-in-private-sector-jobs.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=house-159>{{cite book|author=House, Karen Elliott|title=On Saudi Arabia : Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future| publisher=Knopf|year=2012|page=159}}</ref> The government has announced a succession of plans since 2000 to deal with the imbalance by "[[Saudization]]" of the economy, but the foreign workforce and unemployment has continued to grow.<ref name=house-161>{{cite book|author=House, Karen Elliott|title=On Saudi Arabia : Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future| publisher=Knopf|year=2012|page=161|quote=Over the past decade, the government has announced one plan after another to 'Saudize' the economy, but to no avail. The foreign workforce grows, and so does unemployment among Saudis. .... The previous plan called for slashing unemployment to 2.8% only to see it rise to 10.5% in 2009, the end of that plan period. Government plans in Saudi are like those in the old Soviet Union, grandiose but unmet. (Also, as in the old Soviet Union, nearly all Saudi official statistics are unreliable, so economists believe the real Saudi unemployment rate is closer to 40%)}}</ref> Since the beginning of 2017, however, Saudi Arabia has seen record numbers of foreign workers leaving the country as the Saudi government imposed higher fees on expatriate workers, with more than 677,000 foreigners leaving the kingdom. This has done little to lower the unemployment rate, which rose to 12.9 percent, the highest on record.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/c710cf30-8441-11e8-a29d-73e3d454535d|title=Record numbers of foreign workers leave Saudi Arabia|last=Al Omran|first=Ahmed|date=10 July 2018|work=Financial Times|access-date=17 August 2018|archive-date=18 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180818083840/https://www.ft.com/content/c710cf30-8441-11e8-a29d-73e3d454535d|url-status=live}}</ref>

Each year, about a quarter-million young Saudis enter the job market. With the first phase of Saudization into effect, 70% of sales jobs are expected to be filled by Saudis. However, the private sector still remains hugely dominated by foreigners. The rate of local unemployment is 12.9%, its highest in more than a decade.<ref name="blooms"/> According to a report published by Bloomberg Economics in 2018, the government needs to produce {{gaps|700|000}} jobs by 2020 to meet its 9% unemployment target.<ref name="blooms" />

One obstacle is social resistance to certain types of employment. Jobs in service and sales are considered totally unacceptable for citizens of Saudi Arabia—both to potential employees and customers.<ref name=house-172>{{cite book|author=House, Karen Elliott|title=On Saudi Arabia: Its People, past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future| publisher=Knopf|year=2012|page=172|quote=[At one department store, Al Haram, of] 150 employees, only 25 ... are Saudi. All the Saudis are either cashiers or managers. The store manager, Ali al Qahtani, a Saudi, insists that even if a Saudi asked to work in sales (and none has ...) he would not permit it. 'I would put him at reception or cashier,' he says, 'because Saudi society wouldn't accept a Saudi salesperson.' Indeed, a Saudi intellectual who lives in the kingdom but travels often to Europe and the United States recounts his embarrassment at being served by a Saudi waiter in a restaurant. '... I didn't know what to do, it was so embarrassing.'}}</ref>