The latest official data released on Thursday in Saudi Arabia revealed a drop in the unemployment rate in the Saudi workforce.
The total rate of unemployment — including Saudis and non-Saudis — dropped to 6% in Q1 2022 compared to 6.9% during the same period in 2021, according to the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT).
Unemployment among Saudis fell to 10.1% in Q1 2022 from 11% in Q4 2021, the official data revealed.
The unemployment rate of Saudi women declined to 20.2% in Q1 of 2022 from 22.5 in Q4 2021, while the unemployment rate of Saudi men declined to 5.1% during the same period from 5.2% in the previous quarter.
The survey also showed that the labor force participation rate of the total working age population (Saudis and non-Saudis) reached 60.4% during Q1 2022, compared to 61.5% in Q4 2021.
Among Saudis, there were declines in both the participation rates (down 1.4 percentage points to 50.1%), and the employment-to-population ratio (down 0.7 percentage points to 45.1%).
The participation rate of Saudi women dropped to 33.6% in Q1 2022, compared to 35.6% in Q4 2021, so did the rate of Saudi men that dropped to 66% from 66.8% during the same period.
