Governments in the oil-rich Gulf Arab states have so far failed to tackle unemployment among their own citizens despite impressive economic growth fed by record oil revenues.
Despite most Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members having programmes to train their nationals to join the workforce, the region's private sector still relies on imported labour.
Faced with an inability -- or unwillingness -- among their own people to work in the private sector, governments remain the main employer of native workers in the GCC, which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi economist Ihsan Bu Hulaiga believes that the GCC labour market has been deformed because of its openness to foreign workers and because the public sector functions as a convenient employer for citizens.
"Nowhere is it done in such a way," Bu Hulaiga said of the influx of foreign workers into Gulf states, where expatriates comprise nearly 40 percent of a total population of about 37 million.
"It is not acceptable," he said, noting that in 2007 Saudi Arabia issued a record 1.7 million new working visas.
The largest GCC country in both size and population, and the world's richest in oil resources, Saudi Arabia has about 6.5 million foreigners among a population of nearly 24 million.
But despite its wealth, unemployment among Saudis themselves was 11 percent in 2007, according to official figures, just one percent down from the previous year.
Traditionally, the public sector in GCC states has employed as many nationals as possible under conditions considered very relaxed compared with the private sector.
"The public sector attracts young people for its job security and fewer working hours," Bu Hulaiga lamented.
But because the private sector generates greater job opportunities, most GCC countries have quota systems for nationals in private business.
This policy "contradicts all economic concepts," said Bu Hulaiga.
The solution is to make "national manpower, which is unqualified and more costly (than foreigners), more appealing to employers," he said.
"We have a great chance to qualify our young people amid the current economic growth."
Bu Hulaiga believes GCC governments should make the private sector more attractive to Gulf nationals by providing training and subsidising salaries so they are on par with those of the public sector.
Kuwait already does so. Private companies pay their employees the set basic salary and the government chips in with allowances.
Some 36,000 Kuwaitis have joined private firms since 2003 when the government launched a programme to encourage the private sector recruitment of citizens, the government said in March.
It said that the jobless rate fell from 7.1 percent in 2003 to 5.3 percent in 2007.
But the emirate's public sector still remains the main employer of Kuwaitis, absorbing around 79 percent of the active national workforce of around 324,000.
Half of the employees in the public sector represent what Kuwaiti economist Jassem Saadun called "masked unemployment."
Paying to create such posts "is a way to distribute oil dividends," he told a seminar last month, but warned that such a policy will not work in the long term.
"It is a time bomb. The government will not be able to employ them," he said, because Kuwaitis represent a meagre 3.9 percent of the private sector labour force in a country where nationals comprise less than a third of a population of 3.4 million.
The United Arab Emirates, one of the wealthiest Arab nations, also established a similar programme to help its minority nationals find work in a private sector overwhelmingly dominated by foreigners.
The Emirates Nationals Development Programme found jobs for 2,037 UAE citizens in 2007, mostly in retail and banking, according to ENDP director Azzah al-Sharhan.
The UAE does not provide figures on unemployment, which is believed to be among the lowest in the GCC.
Qataris, less than a third of a predominantly foreign population numbering about 900,000, also reportedly represent just two percent of the private sector workforce, despite a target of 20 percent.
But as the tiny gas-rich emirate enjoys the world's third highest per capita income, citizens of the cradle-to-grave welfare state prefer to work in the public sector. Qatar's unemployment rate is not available.
Bahrain and Oman are less well-off as their oil reserves are dwindling.
Unemployment in Bahrain dropped dramatically to around four percent in 2007 according to official figures, after it was reported to have soared to 15 percent of a 120,000-strong workforce in 2005.
Bahrain also established a programme to aid job seekers, with a governmental body trying to place them in the most suitable posts.
The most recent Omani statistics are from 2004, and put the percentage of nationals out of work at 15 percent of the country's manpower.
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