RIYADH — The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) assessed, in a recent publication of an Instant Insight, the impact of COVID-19 on the Saudi labor market, and how jobs in 24 different sectors were affected by the current crisis.

KAPSARC’s initial assessment, which used the approach prepared by the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, revealed that 39% of Saudi employees in the sectors mentioned in the paper are at risk of losing their jobs, as the bank classified the sectors into high-risk and low-risk sectors, whereas the percentage of non-Saudi employees rises to 93%, due to the increase in the number of foreign workers in job sectors that are most at risk of unemployment, reaching more than 9 million employees, while the number of Saudis in those sectors reaches more than one million Saudi employees.