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Saudi jobless rate down to 11.7%: Nitaqat pays off

February 16, 2015

Jeddah, Feb 16: The Nitaqat nationalization program was successful in bringing down the Kingdom’s unemployment rate to 11.7 percent — 5.9 percent among men and 32.5 percent among women, said the Central Department of Statistics and Information (CDSI).

Saudi joblessIn a statement issued on Sunday, the department put the total number of unemployed Saudis at 650,000, including 258,000 men and 392,000 women.

The department, which comes under the Ministry of Economy and Planning, said reports on unemployment rate in the Kingdom published by some newspapers and other media organizations were not correct.

It emphasized that the Labor Ministry has been supporting the statistics issued by the department in the previous years.

Referring to the statistics issued by the Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF), the CDSI said those figures are related to people who have registered with its Hafiz program to get unemployment benefits.

“Those figures do not represent the number of unemployed Saudis in any way,” the department insisted. “Neither the Labor Ministry nor HRDF and CDSI have published these figures as unemployment indicators,” it added.

A previous report said the unemployment rate among Saudi women in 2013 was 34 percent and among men 6.2 percent. A manpower expert attributed the increase in unemployment rate among women to high percentage of fresh graduates and lack of new job opportunities suitable for them.

The Labor Ministry intends to launch the third phase of Nitaqat on April 20 to create more jobs for Saudis in the private sector.

The Nitaqat helped employ 750,000 Saudis in the private sector until the end of the Hijrah year 1435, showing 15.6 percent rise in Saudization during the year.

Saudi bloggers did not agree with the department’s figures and said the unemployment rates among men and women are much higher. “The total number of unemployed Saudis will be more than a million,” said one blogger while another said the figure would cross six million.

Another blogger pointed out that 1.5 million Saudi men and women have been registered with Hafiz program to receive unemployment allowance, questioning the CDSI statistics. “I think the unemployed in remote villages may not have been counted by CDSI,” said another blogger.

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Agencies
July 31,2020

Makkah, Jul 31: Organising this year's scaled-down hajj required "double efforts" by Saudi authorities amid the coronavirus pandemic, King Salman said Friday after being discharged from hospital following gall bladder surgery.

Only up to 10,000 people already residing in the kingdom are participating in this year's pilgrimage, compared with 2019's gathering of some 2.5 million from around the world.

"Holding the ritual in the shadow of this pandemic... required reducing the numbers of pilgrims, but it obliged various official agencies to put in double efforts," 84-year-old King Salman said in a speech read out on state television by acting media minister Majid Al-Qasabi.

"The hajj this year was restricted to a very limited number of people from multiple nationalities, ensuring the ritual was completed despite the difficult circumstances," he said.

The speech came on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, a day after the king left hospital following a 10-day stay for surgery to remove his gall bladder.

The hajj, which began on Wednesday, is one of the five pillars of Islam and a must for able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lifetime.

Authorities implemented the "highest health precautions" during the rituals, the king said.

Pilgrims, who were all tested for the virus, are required to wear masks and observe social distancing.

For Friday's "stoning of the devil", the last major ritual of the hajj, Saudi authorities offered the pilgrims pebbles that were sanitised to protect against the pandemic.

In a sign that its strict measures were working, the health ministry reported no coronavirus cases in the holy sites on Wednesday or Thursday.

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News Network
April 26,2020

Dubai, Apr 26: Saudi Arabia reported 1223 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 17522, the Ministry of Health announced on Sunday (April 26).

Meanwhile, the ministry reported 142 recoveries today, with total recoveries in the kingdom at 2357. There are 115 cases in intensive care.

The ministry also confirmed 3 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths in the kingdom to 139.

Saudi King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz has ordered the partial lifting of a curfew imposed due to the new coronavirus across the country while keeping a 24-hour lockdown in the holy city of Mecca, the Saudi news agency SPA reported Sunday. The partial lifting of the restriction started Sunday from 9am until 5pm and will continue until May 14, the agency added.

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January 15,2020

Asia, Jan 15: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Wednesday said that killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani showed the ignorance and arrogance of the United States and asserted that Washington looks at things from their perspective and not keeping the interests of the region in mind."The US looks at things from their perspective, not from the perspective of this region. The killing of Qassem Soleimani shows ignorance and arrogance. 430 Indian cities saw protests against killing of Soleimani," Zarif said at an event.

Hitting out at US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, Zarif said that they were the only ones, along with the Islamic State (ISIS) who celebrated the death of Soleimani.

"Who is celebrating Soleimani's killing? President Trump, Pompeo and Daesh (Arabic name of ISIS). You wonder about strange bedfellows?" he said.

Tensions between the US and Iran soared dramatically earlier this month after Washington launched airstrikes at Baghdad International Airport, which killed Soleimani. Tehran retaliated by firing a volley of ballistic missiles at two military bases of US-led coalition forces in Iraq, leading to a strife in the region.

However, Zarif regretted the shooting down of the Ukrainian airline and said it happened because of "tension".

"Nine million people were out in the streets of Iran commemorating Soleimani. You cannot bring out so many people to protest. The shooting down of a plane was a mistake. 180 families are mourning the loss of their dear ones. It happened because of tension," he said.

Asked whether there a chance of a diplomatic solution to the ongoing crisis, Zarif ruled out negotiating with the US.

"Iran is interested in diplomacy. We are not interested in negotiating with the US. US did not keep its commitments under nuclear deal. We had a US deal and the US broke it. If we have a Trump deal, how long will it last?" he said.

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