Protests in the Arab world have drastically increased unemployment

Arab Labor Organization Minister Plenipotentiary Ilham Ghassal said “the protests sweeping across the Arab world have led to a significant increase in unemployment rates.”

She added, in an interview with Al-Arabiya channel, that the second Development and Employment Forum, organized under the patronage of the Guardian of the Two Holy Mosques, is seeking to find a roadmap, which will be announced at the end of the forum. under the name (Riyadh Declaration) to provide solutions to the problem of the presence of 20 million Arabs outside the labor system.

She said this session of the forum is unlike any previous conferences that have dealt with the labor sector alone, while this year’s discussions have gone beyond the participation of ministries of finance, ministries of labor and representatives of the private sector in the Arab world. said: Forum sessions “put solutions and do not blame.” Fair “.

She called for linking education outcomes to labor market needs, noting that the forum for the first time involved planning ministers, with the aim of keeping pace with the worsening unemployment problem, which cannot be solved by governments alone, but by the combination of all the elements of production in Arab countries.

She said the forum seeks to reduce the recruitment of employees outside the Arab system, in the sense of Arabizing jobs, stressing that these ambitions “are not struck by the sword” but come with training and a qualification so that the Arab worker replaces the Asian, who has become a major player in the labor market, especially in the Gulf countries.

She praised the leadership of the Saudi Training Corporation, which worked to prepare the ground for the Saudiization project, as it became, through the efforts of its organizers, a pioneer in the Arab labor sector, benefiting from its experiences in the replacement of foreign workers by nationals. labor.