Saudi Arabia’s labor ministry has issued a directive limiting jobs in shopping malls to Saudi nationals only, ministry spokesman Khaled Aba Al Khail said on Twitter.
The move comes as part of the kingdom’s various initiatives to create jobs for citizens and lower the Saudi unemployment rate, which stood at 12.3 percent in Q4 2016.
Saudi Arabia’s retail sector currently employs 1.5 million workers, only 300,000 of whom are Saudis.
The kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic diversification plan introduced last year calls for a million new jobs for nationals in the sector by 2020.
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