RIYADH - The number of jobless expatriates in the Kingdom increased to 66,267 during the second quarter of the current year compared to 53,084 during the first quarter, according to the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat).

GaStat said jobless expatriates represent about 9.3 percent of the total unemployed people in the Kingdom.

Of these 66,267 unemployed expats, 45,562 are men and 20,705 are women.

There are 802,588 unemployed people, of whom 736,321 are Saudis.

Overall unemployment has also gone up from 775,994 in the first quarter of this year to 802,588 in the second quarter.

GaStat said the rise in the number of jobless expatriates coincided with the governments plans to Saudize jobs in many sectors.

Total employment rate has decreased from 94.2 percent in Q1 of 2017 to 94.0 percent in Q2. Total unemployment rate has increased from 5.8 percent in Q1 to 6.0 percent in Q2.

According to GaStat, the number of employed expatriates decreased to 10.79 million in the second quarter from 10.85 million by the end of the first quarter of the year with a ratio of 0.6 percent.

It said the rate of unemployment among expatriates reached 0.9 percent by the end of the second quarter compared to the end of the first quarter.



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