Saudi Wage Cuts And Youth Unemployment May Signal Future Unrest

It looks like Saudi Arabia could be headed for some domestic unrest in the not too distant future. On Monday, the government announced drastic cuts in salaries and perks for government employees. Government employees incredibly amount to over 60% of all employed workers in the country. The sustained drop in oil prices has blown a whole in the Saudi Arabian budget which ran a deficit of nearly $100 billion last year. In addition, the government is waging a war in Yemen which can only add to the budget difficulties. The demographics for the country are also a bit scary as 300,000 new workers are entering the labor market each year and the unemployment rate for 15-24 year olds stands at around 30%. The Saudi government maintains strict control over the population and a crackdown on internal dissent last year resulted in 47 people getting executed in just one month. But hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people and declining wages for those that are working is probably going to lead to some sort of unrest at some point, no matter how hard the government cracks down.