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6 - The Oil Curse and Labor Markets

The Case of Saudi Arabia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2016

Ibrahim Elbadawi
Affiliation:
Dubai Economic Council and Economic Research Forum (ERF), Egypt
Hoda Selim
Affiliation:
Economic Research Forum (ERF), Egypt
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Summary

Abstract

Oil revenues enable the government to afford generous wages and expansive employment policies in Saudi Arabia. The availability of low-cost foreign labor combined with a rapidly growing working age population result in a large disparity between public and private sector salaries. This segmentation skews Saudi worker preferences for public sector employment and increases their reservation wages for private sector employment, resulting in high unemployment. Government initiatives such as those entailed by the 2011 royal decrees aiming at increasing public sector employment and compensations would further exacerbate unemployment in the long run. The main manifestation of the oil curse in Saudi Arabia is thus through labor market segmentation and the persistently high unemployment rate.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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