Saudi professional scheme accredits nearly 210,000 expat workers
Programme aims to upgrade skill levels of workers employed in Saudi Arabia
Cairo: A Saudi vocational skill verification scheme has accredited 209,500 foreign workers and covered more than 1,000 professions around the world with the aim of raising the level of quality of services at the Saudi labour market, the kingdom’s Ministry of Human Resources has said.
Launched in its external track in 2022, the Saudi Professional Accreditation Programme is designed to verify the expatriate worker’s necessary skills and qualifications per se the requirements of each profession, and in line with the unified Saudi classification of professions, thus boosting the work environment quality.
Additionally, the scheme seeks to cover more countries and a larger number of professions, raise the awareness of government and private sector employers about the importance of accrediting qualified and skilled expat workers, and give them access to the kingdom’s labour market.
The programme comprises two services: the “Professional Verification” and “Professional Examination”, which operate according to specific mechanisms.
The “Professional Verification” service aims to verify the skills, and certificates of expat workers in highly skilled jobs, a process conducted in a fully automated way that takes a maximum of 15 working days.
The “Vocational Examination” service, meanwhile, targets those with medium and low skills for professions that do not require academic degrees. The level of those workers’ skills is evaluated through practical and theoretical tests, before their arrival in the kingdom and after.
Since its launch, the Professional Accreditation Programme has so far included five countries that are deemed the highest exporters of expatriate labour to the Saudi market, namely: Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Egypt.
The scheme is part of the Ministry of Human Resources’s efforts to upgrade the quality of workers at the Saudi labour market, enhance professional services, boost productivity and halt access of unskilled workforce to the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia, a country of 32.2 million people, is home to a large community of expat workers.