RIYADH March 28, 2025 — The General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) announced on Thursday that the unemployment rate among Saudis dropped to 7 percent in Q4 2024, marking a historic low and achieving the original Vision 2030 target five years ahead of schedule.
Initially set to reduce unemployment to 7 percent by 2030, the target has now been revised to 5 percent by 2025 due to the faster-than-expected progress.
According to the labor market statistics for Q4 2024, published by GASTAT, the Saudi unemployment rate decreased by 0.8 percentage points from Q3 2024 and showed the same decrease compared to Q4 2023.
The overall unemployment rate for the total Saudi population stood at 3.5 percent, reflecting a 0.2 percentage point drop from Q3 2024 and a slight increase of 0.1 percentage point from Q4 2023.
Labor force participation for the total population was 66.4 percent, which declined by 0.2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter and 0.6 percentage points year-on-year.
For Saudis, the labor force participation rate fell by 0.4 percentage points to 51.1 percent from the previous quarter, although it increased by 0.7 percentage points year-on-year.
The employed-to-population ratio for Saudis rose slightly by 0.1 percentage point to 47.5 percent, showing a 1 percentage point increase from Q4 2023.
The Saudi female labor force participation rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 36 percent, but the female employed-to-population ratio increased by 0.5 percentage points to 31.8 percent. The unemployment rate among Saudi women dropped by 1.7 percentage points to 11.9 percent compared to Q3 2024.
Among Saudi men, the labor force participation rate dropped by 0.7 percentage points to 66.2 percent, while the employed-to-population ratio decreased to 63.4 percent. The unemployment rate for Saudi men fell to 4.3 percent in Q4 2024.