Saudi unemployment falls to lowest since 2008 as economy booms

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 per cent in the first quarter, down from 11 per cent in the final three months of last year.

The rate reached 5.1 per cent for male citizens and 20.2 per cent 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 per cent in the first quarter, buoyed by higher oil prices and production. The non-oil economy, the engine of job creation, expanded 3.7 per cent.

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

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