Saudi unemployment rate falls 5.8%

Agencies

January 2, 2018

Riyadh, Jan 2: The overall unemployment rate has fallen 5.8% in the Kingdom in the third quarter of 2017 compared with the second quarter, according to a report of the General Authority of Statistics.

Saudi Arabia stands 12th among G20 nations in terms of the average fall in the rate of unemployment during the third quarter.

The report indicates that the unemployment rate among Saudis showed signs of stability at 12.8% despite an increase in the number of new jobseekers.

The overall unemployment rate among women also fell to 21.1% in the third quarter compared with the previous quarter when it stood at 22.9%. This shows positive signs of reforms endorsed by the Council of Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA) to empower women and extend support to them to take up jobs.

There were 1,231,549 Saudi jobseekers during the period. These included 190,822 men and 1,040,727 women. The largest number of jobseekers belonged to the age group of 25-29, with a percentage of 31.3. About 45.8% of jobseekers were holders of university degrees.

According to the report, young men and women make up around 36.7% of Saudi population. It showed that around 54.8% of the population is involved in economic activities, of these 78.4% are men and 19.9% women.

A total of 509,180 visas were issued during Q3 of 2017. The government sector issued 22.3% visas and the private sector 39.9%. Some 37.8% visas were issued to recruit domestic workers, the report noted.

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Israel killing Palestinian children in Gaza every day despite ceasefire: UNICEF

News Network

November 22,2025

The Israeli regime’s forces have killed two Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip every day since the ceasefire began in early October, UNICEF has warned.

The UN children’s agency said on Friday that Israeli forces continue to attack Palestinians in Gaza even though the agreement was meant to stop the killing.

“Since 11 October, while the ceasefire has been in effect, at least 67 children have been killed in conflict-related incidents in the Gaza Strip. Dozens more have been injured. That is an average of almost two children killed every day since the ceasefire took effect,” UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said in Geneva, reminding that each number in the statistics represents a child whose life had ended violently.

“These are not statistics,” he said. “Each child had a story, a family, and a future that was stolen from them.”

Data from Palestinian factions, human rights groups, and government bodies recorded since the US-brokered ceasefire deal went into effect on October 10 show that Israeli forces have carried out numerous attacks, each constituting a separate ceasefire violation.

UNICEF teams say they repeatedly continue to witness heart-wrenching scenes of fearful Palestinian children sleeping outdoors with amputated limbs, while others live as orphans in flooded, makeshift shelters.

“I saw this myself in August. There is no safe place for them. The world cannot normalize their suffering,” Pires said, lamenting that the UN could “do a lot more if the aid that is really needed was entering faster.”

The UNICEF spokesperson warned that with the advent of winter, the risks for hundreds of thousands of displaced children will increase.

He warned, “The stakes are incredibly high” for children as winter acts as a threat multiplier, where children have no heating, no insulation, and few blankets. He said respiratory infections rise.

“Too many children have already paid the highest price,” Pires said. “Too many are still paying it, even under a ceasefire. The world promised them it would stop and that we would protect them.”

“Now we must act like it,” the UNICEF spokesperson added.

Since the Israeli regime launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, it has killed nearly 70,000 people in the territory, most of them women and children, and injured over 170,000 more, while reducing most of the structures in the enclave to rubble.

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