Saudi Arabia fact of the day

…the Saudi adult population will more than double in the next fifteen years, driving subsidies and other government payments to unsustainable levels. The creation of private-sector jobs is the obvious answer for a country whose government employs 70 percent of its working citizens, but the sheer numbers show the difficulty. Executing the National Transformation Plan would require the creation of six million new jobs by 2030 — more if women enter the workforce in larger numbers — and yet the 2003-13 oil boom created just one-third that many. The Kingdom’s currently aims to create 450,000 non-oil jobs before 2020, and yet it would need to create 226,000 jobs a year just to accommodate new entrants to the labor market.

Here is further discussion, via Bob Cottrell.

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