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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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News Network
May 5,2020

Dubai, May 5: Saudi Arabian prosecutors have ordered the arrest of a Saudi citizen for insulting an Asian expatriate and abusing him for not embracing Islam.

A video went viral online showing the expat, apparently with little knowledge of the Arabic language, being insulated by an Arabic-speaking man who does not appear in the clip, for having not embraced Islam and for not fasting.

A monitoring centre affiliated with the public prosecution examined the video the content of which “shows the citizen’s use of abusive words against the Asian resident on the pretext of inviting him to Islam,” the prosecution source said.

“The public prosecution closely follows up whatever infringes rights of citizens and residents including harm to their dignity and legal rights regardless of pretexts of such infringement,” the source added.

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News Network
April 11,2020

Dubai, Apr 11: The UAE has conducted over 49,000 Covid-19 tests among UAE citizens and residents, it was revealed on Friday, using state-of-the-art technology in line with the 's plans to intensify virus screening in order to bring the disease under control.

The accelerated investigative measures helped detect 370 new coronavirus cases among various nationalities, all of whom are in a stable condition and receiving the necessary care.

This took the total number of infections in the country to 3,360, according to a MoHaP statement.

The Ministry also revealed the death of two patients suffering from Covid-19. Both of the deceased were Asian nationals and had pre-existing chronic illnesses. The total number of deaths has now reached 16.

The Ministry expressed its sincere condolences to the families of the deceased and wished a speedy recovery to all patients, calling on the public to cooperate with health authorities and comply with all precautionary measures, particularly social distancing protocols, to ensure the safety and protection of the public.

The Ministry also announced the full recovery of 150 new cases after receiving the necessary treatment, taking to 418 the total of those now recovered from the virus in the UAE.

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News Network
April 27,2020

Dubai, Apr 27: Saudi Arabia has reported 1,289 new Covid-19 cases on April 27, its Ministry of Health tweeted.

Of the newly diagnosed cases, Jeddah recorded 294 infections, followed by Makkah (218) and Madinah (202).

The ministry also confirmed five additional coronavirus-induced deaths, spiking the total death toll to 144.

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Since the outbreak of the virus strain in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, Saudi Arabia has reported a total of 18,811 Covid-19 infections.

As many as 2,531 patients have till now recovered from the virus.

Oman
The sultanate registered 51 new Covid-19 cases on April 27, including 37 nationals and 14 expatriates, spiking the total number of infections to 2,049, Oman News Agency tweeted.

Meanwhile, 10 coronavirus-related deaths have been confirmed in the country.

Qatar
The Ministry of Public Health has reported 957 Covid-19 cases among the 3,420 people tested in the last 24 hours.

As many as 85,709 people have been tested for the virus across the country.

The total number of Covid-19 infections since the outbreak has now risen to 11,244.

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