Saudi: Thousands of jobs waiting to be taken

June 9, 2013

Jeddah, Jun 9: A businessman here has urged the state to overhaul the country’s education system so Saudis could be trained for jobs needed. He also called on the government to set up a statistics agency that could provide “accurate” data on the Saudi labor market, including the number of Saudis without work and their levels of education.

It was recently revealed that there are 40,000 medical and 190,000 engineering job vacancies in the country that could be filled by Saudis. In addition, an annual average of 330,000 Saudi high school graduates prefers to seek work rather than study further.

Mohamed Al-Turki, chairman and CEO of MTMM Engineering Consultancy, said this would help the government develop a proper plan to educate and employ Saudis in line with market needs.

Al-Turki said current statistics are not accurate. “I don’t think we have a proper statistics agency that can tell us the exact number of unemployed. What we read in the press is not accurate, and we can’t depend on Hafiz data,” he said.

“If we refer to Hafiz, the number of unemployed is really high, but we can’t determine whether they are educated or not,” he said.

Al-Turki said the unemployment problem could only be solved if businesspeople have access to a database that identifies the number of unemployed, their level of education and market needs. He added that the Ministry of Higher Education should also help in this process. “The ministry of labor is definitely doing its best to solve a high profile issue. However, I believe that without changing the education system to meet market demand, the unemployment issue will not be solved,” said Al-Turki.

According to statistics, there are 333,075 foreign nurses, taking up 88 percent of the country’s nursing jobs, while there are an estimated 333,045 trained Saudi nurses.

Abdulrahim Gari, internal medicine and hematology consultant and member of the medical health committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), said there is high demand in the Kingdom for medical workers.

“Unfortunately, most Saudis don’t have a good understanding of what it means to have a good work ethic. Medical jobs require qualified people who have the proper work ethic,” he said.

“Most unemployed Saudis have BA degrees in education and other fields that do not fulfill Saudi market needs. We have vacancies in the private and government medical sector, and if I receive applications from Saudi nurses, technicians or doctors, I will hire them for sure.”

He said many graduates are not qualified to fill medical jobs. “If we speak about the 28,000 Saudis who just graduated from medical institutes, they are not qualified enough, which is why the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties has not (certified) them,” he said.

Gari said there would be rising demand for medical jobs because of the increasing Saudi population, the rise in the number of elderly people, and the prevalence of obesity and diabetes.

Ahmed Omar Al-Sanousi, CEO of Prince Sultan Cultural Center, said Saudis must prepare themselves to take up new professions rather than depending on jobs in traditional areas of work. “I think that young Saudis’ views about work have changed and will continue to change.”

He also called on the labor ministry to get a broad range of data on the labor market. “The high unemployment rate has been determined by the labor ministry, but doesn’t reveal the background of the unemployed. I think we need a detailed database that defines accurately the number of employees, their education and their background,” he said.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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