Abdullah Bin Bakheet

Al Riyadh

 

I do not know how unemployment statistics are compiled nor do I know how they are analyzed, but it seems to me that there is a loophole in the employment process.



If you look at the advertisements across the Kingdom and study their contents, you will find that the majority are consumer-oriented.



The advertisements are for clothes, watches, malls, holidays and mobile phones. None of these advertisements relate to the unemployment problem that Saudi Arabia is presently experiencing.



If there is an outbreak of disease or an epidemic, God forbid, an industry grows around it.

Regardless of the humanitarian aspect, people use the opportunity to trade and make a profit.



However, training or developing skills, in spite of the widespread unemployment in the Kingdom, hardly features in the Saudi advertisement industry at all.



In Canada, where I live, many advertisements feature training, the development of skills and serving society.



These types of advertisements are more important than mobile phone advertisements. The problem of unemployment cannot be solved by imposing Saudization and Saudi ID cards are not certificates proving that one is skilled—this is something I always say.



Banks and financial organizations need to unite and create institutes to train people in banking. The tourism and recreation sector should create and set up its own training centers.



The same should be done by the medical and cosmetic sector, and so on. The gap between the needs of the labor market and people’s capabilities should be bridged.



I note that Saudis still search for government jobs—this concept of the state employing and feeding people has its roots in the socialist theories of the1960s.



This later became known as “disguised unemployment” in that 10 people would be employed to do a single job. One person would work while the rest would interrupt, delay and demoralize him.



I thought that the Ministry of Labor would have made the Kingdom into a training workshop. Ideally, the Kingdom should be a destination for global training institutes.



Universities should be providing training programs or expanding existing programs. Banks should be developing and promoting programs for giving loans for training.



The state should be sending students on scholarships abroad, not just for academic studies, but for vocational training.



It is right to ask the business sector to train Saudis, but it is wrong to impose on them the need to employ people whose only qualification is their being Saudi nationals.



Training does not provide people with the required skills to work, but it does provide them with two important things: love of work and therefore loyalty, and removing the socialist concept about work from people’s minds in that work is not about earning one’s daily bread but about being productive and contributing to global development.



It is only by doing so that a person can become proud of himself. When a person becomes an automobile mechanic, for example, he will feel that his contributions are helping the world advance.



When he becomes an electrician, he will be in charge of people’s prosperity and safety. What has caused people to stay away from some jobs in the past is their inability to do them.



Employing people by the force of law causes them to be a burden on those who employ them.

Saudis should be prepared to work in Saudi Arabia, Japan or India. Skill is an international commodity.

If Saudis are not accepted in the international labor market, forcing them onto the local market will only harm the national economy.