#SaudiArabia Unemployment Falls to Lowest Since 2008 as Economy Booms - Bloomberg

Saudi Arabia Unemployment Falls to Lowest Since 2008 as Economy Booms - Bloomberg

Saudi Arabia’s citizen unemployment rate fell to the lowest since 2008 as economic growth surged on the back of higher oil revenue.

Joblessness was at 10.1% in the first quarter, down from 11% in the final three months of last year. The rate reached 5.1% for male citizens and 20.2% for female Saudis, according to data published Thursday by the kingdom’s General Authority for Statistics.

The economy of the world’s largest crude exporter grew nearly 10% in the first quarter, buoyed by higher oil prices and production. The non-oil economy, the engine of job creation, expanded 3.7%.

Citizen unemployment peaked at over 15% at the height of the pandemic in mid-2020 and has since fallen almost every quarter. Yet even in a booming job market, the labor participation rate for Saudis fell by 1.4 percentage point from the fourth quarter to 50.1% in the first three months of this year.