TSG Report Cited on Business Insider: This is Saudi Arabia’s ‘Achilles’ Heel’

May 26, 2016

This is Saudi Arabia’s ‘Achilles’ Heel’

Business Insider
By: Elena Holodny 

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In the aftermath of the 2003 terrorist attacks carried out by nationals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, then-Crown Prince Abdullah argued that youth unemployment was the Kingdom’s biggest challenge.

Fast forward thirteen years into the future, and the problem remains a pressing issue for the Arab state to this day.

“Abdullah singled out youth unemployment as Saudi Arabia’s number one security challenge — and it is,” Helima Croft, the head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told Business Insider in an interview on Tuesday.

“That’s the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of Saudi Arabia — the question of how to deal with its young population.”

Approximately two-thirds of the Saudi population is under the age of 30, but about 30% of the population aged 15-24 is unemployed, according to a 2014 estimate from the International Labor Organization. Plus, about 27% of the population is under the age of 14, which implies that Saudi Arabia’s going to need to create a lot more jobs in the near future…

Notably, Saudis make up the second largest group of foreign fighter nationalities in ISIS, according to a December 2015 report by The Soufan Group

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Download The Soufan Group’s updated report on Foreign Fighters here.

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To read the full article please click on the link below:
http://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-achilles-heel-security-problem-2016-5

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