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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
August 2,2020

Kuwait, Aug 2: Kuwait has barred entry of foreign passengers from over 30 countries including India and China.

A circular from the Director General Civil Aviation, State of Kuwait directed all airlines operating at Kuwait International Airport to adhere to the instructions in this regard.

"Based on the decision of the Health Authority in State of Kuwait, no foreign passenger coming from the down listed countries will be allowed to enter the State of Kuwait," the circular read.

These include- India, Iran, China, Brazil, Colombia, Armenia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Syria, Spain, Singapore, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Iraq, Mexico, Indonesia, Chile, Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon, Hong Kong, Italy, North Macedonia, Moldova, Panama, Beirut ,Serbia Montenegro, Dominican Republic and Kosovo.

The circular stated that such restriction will also include the passengers were present 14 days before the date of travel until further notice.

The ban was announced the same day Kuwait began a partial resumption of commercial flights according to Khaleej Times, which quoted authorities stating that Kuwait International Airport would run at about 30 per cent capacity from Saturday, gradually increasing in coming months.

According to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, Kuwait has reported 67,448 cases of coronavirus while the fatalities related to the virus stand at 453.

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News Network
January 8,2020

Dubai, Jan 8: Iranian state television said on Wednesday that at least 80 "American terrorists" were killed in attacks involving 15 missiles Tehran launched on US targets in Iraq, adding that none of the missiles were intercepted.

State TV, citing a senior Revolutionary Guards source, also said Iran had 100 other targets in the region in its sights if Washington took any retaliatory measures. It also said US helicopters and military equipment were "severely damaged".

Iran launched missile attacks on US-led forces in Iraq in the early hours of Wednesday in retaliation for the US drone strike on an Iranian commander whose killing has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East.

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News Network
March 25,2020

Riyadh, Mar 25: A 46-year-old man died of coronavirus in Saudi Arabia, becoming the Kingdom’s second death, according to a health ministry’s spokesman.

The health ministry recorded 133 new infections, bringing the total to 900.

Of those newly confirmed cases, 18 are associated with recent travel, and were placed in quarantine upon their arrival in the Kingdom, the spokesman said.

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