The unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia has reached 12.1 percent in 2012, according to new numbers published by the Central Department of Statistics and Information (CDSI). The stats show that there are 602,853 Saudi nationals who are unemployed, 243,983 of them are men. But the unemployment rate is far higher among females (36 percent) than males (6.1 percent). CDSI says 73.3 percent of unemployed women have a college degree.
The Saudi government has worked in recent years to tackle the problem of rising unemployment by encouraging more women to join the workforce. They have limited work in some retail jobs to women and announced plans to lift the ban on female lawyers arguing cases in courtrooms. These moves were faced with resistance from religious conservatives who accuse the Minister of Labor of pushing a liberal agenda aiming to “Westernize” society through gender mixing at the workplace. Hundreds of clerics have visited the Ministry headquarters in Riyadh during recent weeks to protest women employment policies implemented by Fakieh.
Saudi Unemployment Rate Above 12 Percent, CDSI Says — Riyadh Bureau
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