Rising unemployment in Saudi Arabia; Users demanded the resignation of the Minister of Labor.
Saudi users on social media have called for the removal of the Minister of Labor due to the high unemployment rate in the country.
Saudi users on social media trended the hashtag “# القالة_الراجحی_مطلب_وتنی” calling for the removal of “Ahmad Al-Rajhi”, the Minister of Labor, who is considered one of the ministers close to “Mohammad bin Salman”.
According to the Saudielix website, users wrote that al-Rajhi was incapable of realizing public rights and providing them with employment opportunities, and that foreign forces had seized job opportunities in Saudi Arabia, and that the unemployment rate had risen significantly.
Saudi graduates say the labor minister should step down due to rising unemployment, rising corruption and bribery. According to them, al-Rajhi has also failed to transfer job opportunities to Saudi youth (al-Sauda).
According to Saudielix, the Saudi economy has performed poorly in the face of the unemployment crisis, despite promises by Mohammed bin Salman. Unemployment fell sharply in the first quarter of 2021, according to official figures, but not because of Saudi officials themselves, but because of a reluctance or inability to work.
However, citizen labor force participation fell from 2.51 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 5.49 percent in the first quarter of this year, the largest decline since the recession in 2017.
Also amid complaints of poor government performance and inability to come up with serious solutions, last year the crisis of the Corona virus outbreak led to an increase in unemployment of Saudi citizens to 4.15 percent.
Receiving bribes and having a lawsuit in the UAE are other reasons for users to fire the Saudi Minister of Labor. Al-Rajhi is embroiled in a major fraud case that has been described as the biggest real estate fraud in the Middle East, and according to leaked documents, Saqr bin Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a well-known Emirati businessman, has decided to file a lawsuit against Al-Rajhi.
