JEDDAH, Jul 3 (Arab News): More than 800,000 Saudi men and women with various qualifications are waiting to be employed by the government, local Arabic daily Al-Madinah reported Friday, quoting an official source at the Ministry of Civil Service.

The official said those on the waiting list consisted of 315,000 women teachers with various specialties while the rest were graduates of elementary, intermediate and secondary schools. “Some of them have diplomas, university degrees, master’s and even Ph.Ds,” he said.

He said the opening of applications for men and women in all specializations will enable his ministry to create a database for those wishing for government jobs according to their potentials and in complete transparency.

The official said a large number of graduates in medical specializations such as nursing, laboratories, pharmacology and physiotherapy, were among those included in the waiting list for government positions. He said the number of government employees rose from 674,550 in 2000 to 920,000 last year.

The newspaper on the other hand said about 70 Saudis in Jeddah with university degrees in medicine and dentistry from Saudi and foreign universities have been unemployed for two years. It said one of them, who is a medical doctor, had to work as a limousine driver to earn his living after both the government and private hospitals refused to accept him. However, a source at the Ministry of Health told the newspaper that these graduates insisted on being employed in Jeddah where there are no vacancies.

Dr. Fawzi Al-Ghamdi, director of the department of dentistry at the Health Ministry, said there are a large number of job opportunities for those graduates outside the city of Jeddah.